When Michelle Quesnel became pregnant with her first child, her mother, Jacqueline “Jackie” Sommer, pressed her with a serious question.

“Are you ready for the breadbasket?”

Quesnel, 68, and her family have a long-running tradition of carrying their newborns in a breadbasket that the 30-person clan has kept for four generations. The basket, which serves as the family’s go-anywhere bassinet, is awaiting its 26th baby. Sommer, 91, was the first to be placed in the makeshift baby carrier as an infant in 1927.

“There’s a lot of history there,” Sommer said.

On a recent morning, Michelle brought the breadbasket to her mother at Mt. Bachelor Memory Care, where Jackie lives with her husband, Don Sommer, also 91. Until recently, the Sommers, who had previously lived in Salem for 80 years, hadn’t seen the breadbasket for four years.

“I get teary because I think back to everything that it went through,” Jackie said, adding that she finds it remarkable that her late mother, who was an only child, would keep the breadbasket in anticipation of a large extended family. As a young mother, Jackie recalled taking her infant children on picnics at Silver Creek Falls, near Salem. The breadbasket isn’t quite as Jackie remembers it.

“It looks smaller,” she said with a light laugh.

The utilitarian wicker breadbasket, outfitted in handmade liners and covers, sat on a coffee table. Nearly a century old, the breadbasket is remarkably stout. Measuring 30 inches by 17 inches, the breadbasket is 11 inches deep. It’s been propped on piano benches, in backyard gardens, airplanes and in the backseat of cars on road trips before safety seats were available.

“It’s as if it’s made of iron,” said Greg Quesnel, 70 and Michelle’s husband. They carted each of their three children in the breadbasket.

Over the years, family members took turns ensuring the longevity of the basket’s construction. Don painted the raw wicker in white paint. Michelle’s sister Sue Iwen fitted it with a liner that she sewed together. Her third sister, Judy Smith, 56, made a mini duvet during a lull between births. Michelle keeps a paper register of the breadbasket’s past occupants and their birth dates. Some peaks and valleys appear in the family’s progeny. Jackie became a mother when she gave birth to Michelle on May 29, 1950. The breadbasket was used steadily until 1964, but no more babies arrived until Michelle had her first child, Troy, on March 29, 1975. Another lull came in the ’90s, but the arrival of grandkids has made the breadbasket a high-demand item since then.

“Our daughter Erin in San Jose who was expecting her first baby, Madeline, said, ‘Mom. How are we getting the breadbasket down here?’” Quesnel said. “‘I gotta have the breadbasket.’”

Something wicker this way comes

The breadbasket has been around as long as Jackie, who was born in Aurora, Colorado, on Feb. 10, 1927. Her father Al Torgerson worked as a butcher at the Aurora Market, a mom and pop grocery store. His wife, Pearl Torgerson, was pregnant with Michelle’s mother, Jackie, and they didn’t have anything for her to sleep in. His friend, a baker whose name Jackie doesn’t remember, gave him a wicker breadbasket. The new family soon moved to Salem. When Jackie married Don, her mother gave her the breadbasket. Michelle’s three cousins — by way of Don’s brother — spent time in the breadbasket. When Michelle was born, she was also put in the breadbasket.

“It’s the perfect size,” said Michelle, adding that the basket doesn’t rock. “Everyone has been in it.”

All of the occupants of the breadbasket are alive today except for the Sommers’ son Ricky James, who was born on Oct. 7, 1951, but died of meningitis near his third birthday, family members said.

Over the years, the breadbasket has been shuttled between Ketchum, Idaho; Salem, Portland; Seattle; San Jose, California; and Grand Rapids, Michigan. There, it was last used when Molly Herrmann gave birth to Nash on Nov. 26, 2017. To report that a stork carries the breadbasket here and there would be fantastical but false. The breadbasket presently resides with the Quesnels in Bend.

Some babies stay in it for longer than others. The Sommers’ great granddaughter Skade Quesnel, was born in Ketchum at 5 pounds, 1 ounce. She spent about five months in the breadbasket. The largest baby kept in the breadbasket is Michelle’s second son, Kyle Quesnel, who was born in Portland at 9 pounds, 15 ounces. He was only in the breadbasket for about six weeks, Michelle said. One of the Sommers’ granddaughters, Corie Kaiser, had twins named Carson and Caden on Sept. 17, 2009.

“She lined them up side-by-side, feet-to-feet,” Quesnel said. “Obviously her boys didn’t stay in it very long.”

Judy, 56 and the youngest of Michelle’s siblings, spent time in the breadbasket, along with her four children, whom she raised in Sammamish, Washington, and Salem. Although they were born at normal weights, her children Haley Smith, 23, and her brother Hugh Smith, 21, are the breadbasket babies who’ve grown the largest. Haley, is 6 feet, 2 inches tall, and Hugh is 6 feet, 10 inches tall. Hugh, whom his family sometimes refers to as “Baby Huey,” finds it inconceivable that he ever fit in a breadbasket. His family’s subsequent use of wicker in way of Easter egg baskets has forged a fondness for the woven stuff. Someday he’d like a wicker rocking chair, perhaps on a porch.

“The breadbasket is something I never really thought about until I was just talking to my mom about it,” Hugh said. “I think it’s really special. That this tradition has been passed around really shows how close my family is. Everyone is still in touch. They still want to use the breadbasket; they seek it out. It’s a special rite of passage, if you will.”

Hugh said he intends to call on the breadbasket someday, just not yet. In the meantime, he’s going to focus on his nascent professional baseball career as a rookie power-arm pitcher for the Detroit Tigers.

“We’re going to give the breadbasket a couple years,” Hugh said.

— Reporter: 541-617-7816, pmadsen@bendbulletin.com