The Bay School Community Arts Center in Mathews educates its patrons in many forms of the arts. Recently, the lineup included a holiday chocolate and candy workshop: a morning session for adults, and an afternoon class for children 13 and up, to make a chocolate gingerbread house. Maryann Hobo of the Williamsburg Chocolatier, Inc., was the instructor who said, “I love what I am doing.” Maryann is a third-generation confectioner. The business was started by her mother, Evelyn Dixon Conner, in 1985 who had learned the art of candy- and chocolate-making from her mother. Williamsburg Chocolatier began on part-time seasonal wholesale basis; when Maryann joined operations in 1992, it bloomed into a full-time, year-around business. A retail store opened in 1994, expanding operations which also served as a manufacturing location for the chocolate confections, offices, chocolate-making classes for kids and adults, cake decorating as well as chocolate making birthday parties. From one of their f...