Merridee Erickson, founder of Merridee’s Breadbasket, grew up on the family farm near Winthrop, Minnesota, baking breads, pies and sweets with her mother. Saturday was bread-baking day, and by the age of nine she was doing most of the baking herself. Merridee attended the University of Minnesota where she studied Food Business. While there, she met and married Tom McCray. In 1973, Merridee and Tom moved to middle Tennessee. In 1981 Merridee began retailing her fresh-baked goods from a little log cabin in Fairview. As word spread, she was asked to open a restaurant as part of the historic revitalization of downtown Franklin.