Steffen-Bretch Ice and Ice Cream Company

Wichita, Kansas-based Nicholas Steffen and William Bretch brought their successful dairy and ice company to Oklahoma City's Bricktown area in the early 1900s. The company sold large blocks of ice, Steffen's brand ice cream and other dairy products. Ralph Ellison's father, Lewis Ellison, delivered Steffen-Bretch products to Black homes in northeast Oklahoma City beginning in 1916.

Lewis Ellison, the father who was the subject of fantasies of memory for an older Ralph, was a physically strong, former soldier who found various jobs in his adopted Oklahoma City home. The tragic last of these was with the Steffen-Bretch Ice and Ice Cream Company for whom he supplied ice to both White and Black homes and grocery stores. As Ellison described it: “All of three years old, I was with him when he collapsed while mounting a ladder to place a block of ice in a grocery refrigerator.” This event, at such a young age, imprinted on Ellison’s mind, and later he described that “as a youth I would be bemused by a recurring fantasy in which, on my way to school of a late winter day I would emerge from a cold side street into the warm spring sun and there see my father, dead since I was three, rushing toward me with a smile of recognition and outstretched arms. And I would run proudly to greet him, his son grown tall."

Callahan, John F.. Conner, Marc C.. The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison. New York City, New York. Random House, 2019.

Rampersad, Arnold. Ralph Ellison A Biography. New York City, New York. Vintage, 2007.