Wallace “Wally” Amos, the entrepreneur and founding father of Well-known Amos cookies who later turned a kids’s literary advocate, died on Tuesday on the age of 88, his household stated.
“Along with his Panama hat, kazoo, and boundless optimism, Well-known Amos was a terrific American success story, and a supply of Black pleasure,” stated a press release from his kids, Sarah, Michael, Gregory and Shawn Amos.
On Tuesday, Amos died at his dwelling in Honolulu along with his spouse, Carol, at his facet, his kids stated. He died from problems with dementia.
Amos created the Well-known Amos cookie empire and opened his bakery in 1975 on Sundown Boulevard in Los Angeles, the place he offered bite-sized chocolate chip cookies, in line with the corporate’s web site, utilizing an authentic household recipe and top quality components.
From there, the Well-known Amos cookies took off, the corporate says, and have become a Hollywood success story, with musicians and Hollywood celebrities “singing the praises of the scrumptious cookies from a small bakery on Sundown”.
His kids stated that Amos “impressed a era of entrepreneurs when he based the world’s first cookie retailer” in 1975.
Whereas Amos was a terrific promoter, he struggled as a businessperson and ultimately misplaced management of the corporate. His daughter, Sarah Amos, stated that he walked away from it as a result of he didn’t need to simply be its face.
Dropping the enterprise and the correct to make use of his identify was deeply painful and private, his son, Shawn Amos stated: “The rest of his life and the rest of his skilled pursuits have been makes an attempt to get him to, , reclaim that house.”
In his later years, Amos turned a proprietor of a cookie store referred to as Chip & Cookie in Hawaii, the place he moved in 1977, after beforehand being stationed there with the US Air Power. Inside his now-shuttered Hawaii cookie store, Amos offered bite-sized cookies just like those he first offered on the Well-known Amos Hollywood retailer.
Amos additionally co-founded Uncle Wally’s Muffin Co, in 1992, whose merchandise are present in shops nationwide. The muffin firm, based mostly in Shirley, New York, was initially based as Uncle Noname Cookie Co, a number of years after Amos misplaced Well-known Amos. Uncle Noname, nonetheless, foundered due to debt and issues with its contracted producers.
Amos stated the celebrity by no means actually mattered a lot to him.
“Being well-known is very overrated anyway,” Amos advised the Related Press in 2007.
Born in Tallahassee, Florida, in 1936, Amos moved to New York Metropolis at age 12 due to his mother and father’ divorce. He lived with an aunt, Della Bryant, who taught him the right way to make chocolate chip cookies.
He later dropped out of highschool to affix the air drive earlier than working as a mailroom clerk on the William Morris Company, the place he turned a expertise agent, working with the Supremes, Simon & Garfunkel and Marvin Gaye earlier than borrowing $25,000 to launch his cookie enterprise.
He was the primary Black agent within the enterprise, Shawn Amos stated.
Amos was lively in selling studying. His store, for instance, had a studying room with dozens of donated books, and Amos normally spent Saturdays sitting on a rocking chair, sporting a watermelon hat, studying to kids.
Sarah Amos recalled him studying to kids at Hanahauʻoli College and persevering with to take action even after she graduated from the small elementary faculty.
The previous highschool dropout penned eight books, served as spokesperson for Literacy Volunteers of America for twenty-four years and gave motivational talks to firms, universities and different teams.
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To honor the legacy of Amos, Well-known Amos launched an initiative that enhances Black-owned small companies with $150,000 in grants to help their development, named Components for Success, per the corporate’s web site.
Amos earned quite a few honors for his volunteerism, together with the Literacy Award offered by George HW Bush in 1991.
“Your best contribution to your nation isn’t your signature straw hat within the Smithsonian, however the individuals you might have impressed to study to learn,” Bush stated.
In 1987, Amos was acknowledged as a Horatio Alger award recipient, which is awarded to “distinctive leaders who’ve triumphed over adversity to attain greatness” and those that “personify the American Dream and their life experiences are proof that, with perseverance and unwavering perception, something is feasible in our nation via the free-enterprise system”.
The Horatio Alger Affiliation web site states that Amos was a agency believer in the advantages of a optimistic perspective. “When individuals fill their lives with love, optimistic vitality, religion, giving, and enthusiasm, they are going to be successful,” Amos stated.
Throughout his life, Amos was married six occasions to 5 girls, his son Shawn stated, explaining that he and Carol had cut up up, reacquainted after which remarried.
“He beloved love,” Sarah Amos stated.
In a 1991 interview with Detroit Black Journal, Amos stated that he began making cookies “simply to make a dwelling and to be glad doing what I used to be doing … I used to be so dedicated and so concerned and so joyous about it.”
He continued: “I didn’t say hey, ‘I’m going to go within the cookie enterprise and make some huge cash, promote a whole lot of cookies.’ I stated, ‘I’m going to do one thing I like, the best way I wanna do it, I’m gonna have enjoyable doing it, I’m gonna share it with individuals and I’m going to do my finest’ and I simply did it.”
The Related Press contributed reporting