Paul H. and C. Kay Cummings share a heritage, a last name, a love of making candy.
They are brothers, both working at a trade born of their father's high school romance.They also are rivals, competing for the sweet tooth of a state that loves its candy.
Paul, 64, is president of Cummings Studio Chocolates at 679 E. 900 South in Salt Lake City.
Kay, 68, is president of C. Kay Cummings Candies at 2057 E. 3300 South in Holladay.
Their common ancestor in confection was their father, Clyde. Interest in a girl landed him in a high school home economics class. And although Clyde did not "get" the girl, Paul says, he discovered during the class that he enjoyed making candy. And he was good at it.
Clyde started making treats in the basement of his parents' house, Paul says. Demand grew, and Clyde soon was selling the candy. He expanded into a store of his own in 1924.
Paul says his dad was a perfectionist, and the candy was his alter ego. Clyde would spend 12 to 14 hours in the store and eat a pound or more of his product every day.
As Clyde's children grew, they inherited his willingness to work long, hard hours. But they did not all share his passion for sweets.
Paul studied business administration in college and started selling cars.
"I wasn't really interested in getting in the store," Paul says. "I was making a lot of money selling cars, and I was happy as a clam. . . . There's no question in my mind that I would have a higher net worth if I had stayed in the car business."
Kay worked at the candy store and wanted to make that his livelihood.
"I was the first son and only child that chose the candy business as a profession," he says.
Then the two brothers were thrown together.
Paul says his mother, Arline, came to him in the late 1950s and asked him to come back to the store and learn to make candy. There is a secret to making it right, Paul says, and his mother was worried that Kay would not learn it.
"By then, Kay and Dad didn't get along," Paul says.
Despite his lack of interest, Paul says he started going to the store in the early mornings, working with his father. In the spring of 1959, he says, Clyde told Paul he knew everything he needed to know about making the candy.
A week later, on April 9, 1959, Clyde Cummings died, leaving the business to Arline.
Paul says his other family members asked him to help run the business, and he eventually agreed, despite the fact that it would mean a cut in income.
"I couldn't let mother down," he says.
Kay says their oldest brother, Victor, was an accountant and worked on the books. Paul made the candy, and Kay says he "served as general manager."
Paul says he and Kay immediately had differences on how to run the business. "Kay and I just don't talk the same language," he says.
Kay says, "We were never able to develop a mission statement for the three of us, as far as the candy store."
The problems grew, and Kay quit in 1964.
"The family has never been quite the same since," Kay says. "We have minds of our own. I felt like I couldn't express my business acumen . . . and how I wanted to develop with that company, so I decided to leave and start my own."
Kay says his first plan was to set up shop in Phoenix, but he did not have the money. Eventually he saved enough from selling his home and working the early shift at ZCMI to buy a Colorado candy company and bring its equipment back to Salt Lake City. He and his wife opened their first store in September 1965.
"It's been a wonderful experience," Kay says. "I would do it again in a minute."
Paul, who kept running his father's business when Arline died in 1979, was not as pleased with the prospect of a separate candy company using the Cummings name in Salt Lake City.
"It's been a constant irritation," he says. "I've gotten to the point where I run my business, and I don't care what Kay does. . . . But I wish there wasn't the confusion. The confusion in names is very difficult."
For example, he says, people who call information asking for Cummings candies may get his number, Kay's number or both.
Customers sometimes place an order with one brother, then get angry if it is not ready when they try to pick it up at the other brother's store.
Deliveries end up at the wrong location, and Paul says he will often find checks made out to C. Kay Cummings Candies in his till at the end of the day.
Kay agrees there were some problems immediately after the split, but he thinks people now are aware that he and his brother operate separate businesses.
"I have never tried to defame my brother's business or him," Kay says. "He is my brother and is in business to stay. We have no right to try to disturb the equation."
Although their candy tastes different - Paul says his is the best in the state - Kay says they both learned their father's recipes. In fact, Kay says he still has the 23 yellowed slips of paper on which his father wrote them.
"We have created a number of recipes of our own, of which we are justly proud," he says. "We certainly don't have a thing to be apologetic or sorry about. And I believe we've done it without hurting any of my competitors at any time. . . . There's room in this world for everybody."
Paul says that, after the split, his company did some "very pointed" advertising, saying that it was the original Cummings chocolates.
But that upset some customers, who did not like the prospect of the brothers fighting, so he says he stopped.
And he still thinks often about his relationship with his brother.
"As long as the names are the same, the family will never fully heal," Paul says. "If the names were different, I think we'd be fine."
Kay says he is not the one who is holding up family reconciliation.
"I'm sort of pictured as the black sheep of the family, or the dark chocolate version," he says. "I feel like I've been left out of a lot of things. They're more unhappy with me being up here than I am."
It has been almost 35 years since the split. The brothers talk sometimes, but they don't socialize.
Paul focuses on retail sales and a strong mail-order business. Cummings Studio Chocolates makes about 100,000 pounds of candy every year and has annual sales of between $1 million and $1.5 million.
Kay does retail and mail-order business, and his company also makes thousands of "pillow mints" every week for the world's hotels and cruise lines. He says sales this year will be more than $1.5 million.
Both brothers are cutting back on hours, but neither plans to fully retire. Both hope to leave their businesses to their children.
Both say they still love their jobs and are proud of what they have accomplished. And both feel they are doing their best to keep alive their father's dreams.
"The hopes and dreams of parents are that all their children will grow up to be law-abiding, moral, honest and productive people, no matter what they do," Kay says. "I think my father would be proud of both of us."