Benwood Food Products, Processed in Sandusky

Pictured above is a wooden codfish box packed by the Bender-Woodward Company in Sandusky, Ohio. The Benwood brand name was a combination of the company’s officials, M.J. Bender, Jr. and W.W. Woodward. The Benwood brand of food products were produced in the 1920s

One of the partners in the Bender-Woodward Company

From about 1896 to 1902, M.J. Bender, Jr. operated a grocery store at the southwest corner of Hancock and Monroe Streets; by 1908, he had moved his business to the southeast corner of Hancock and Water Streets. Around 1910, Mr. Bender went into business with W. W. Woodward. Bender was the president of the company, and Woodward was the Vice President. (Mr. Woodward had previously been associated with Hoover-Woodward.) The Bender-Woodward store, which operated as a wholesale grocery business, was in business in Sandusky until 1939. Eventually, M.J. Bender Jr.’s son Elliot became associated with the company.

An advertisement in the May 20, 1924 issue of the Sandusky Star Journal promoted the Benwood Brand.

In 1924, Bender-Woodward Co. was just one of several local sponsors of the Garland Cooking School, which met for an entire week at the Dilgart & Bittner Co. on Washington Row.

Mr. and Mrs. Gustav Jarecki, Jr.

Gustav Jarecki, Jr. was born in Erie, Pennsylvania in February 1867 to Gustav and Dorothy Jarecki. The elder Gustav Jarecki organized the Jarecki Chemical Co. in Erie, Pennsylvania in 1881. Gustav, Jr. began working for his father, who sent him to Ohio to establish a plant in Sandusky. 

 The Jarecki Chemical Co., seen above in an 1893 Sanborn Map, was located at the foot of First Street, adjacent to Sandusky Bay. This location made it convenient for obtaining fish, and also for shipping the final product by water. One of the best selling products at the Sandusky factory was a fertilizer made from fish by-products. This picture postcard shows the dock of the Jarecki Chemical Company covered in fish in the early twentieth century.

             

 The plant operated from 1887 until 1920 when it was sold to the Armour Fertilizer Co. (Armour ceased operations in Sandusky in the 1960s.) In the early 1900s, Gustav Jarecki, Jr. moved to Cincinnati where he established another branch of the company.

Gustav Jarecki, Jr. and Cora L. Woodward married in June, 1891. 

Mr. and Mrs. Jarecki had only one child, a daughter named Gretchen Dorothea Jarecki. Gretchen studied at the Briar Cliff Manor in New York; she is pictured below when she was a preschooler.

While Mr. and Mrs. Gustav Jarecki, Sr. are buried in Sandusky’s Oakland Cemetery, the family of Gustav Jarecki, Jr. is buried in Cincinnati’s Spring Grove Cemetery.

A database of interments at Spring Grove Cemetery list the following burials in Section 125; Lot 133:

Gustav Jarecki, buried January 1, 1946

Cora Jarecki, buried January 1, 1946

Gretchen J. Welch, buried October 9, 1985

Gretchen’s husband, William W. Welch was buried on January 1, 1957, and a former husband, Warren D. Owen, was buried on January 1, 1942. Gretchen Jarecki Welch lived until the age of 95; she died in Pompano Beach, Florida on October 5, 1985.

Hoover and Woodward, Wholesale Grocers

 In 1880, Frederick E. Hoover and William W. Woodward started a wholesale grocery business on Water Street in Sandusky, Ohio. Frederick Hoover had moved to Sandusky from Sidney, Ohio. He was a Civil War veteran, having served in Company D of the 20^th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, under Manning Force, who was the first commandant of the Ohio Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Home in Erie County, Ohio, now the Ohio Veterans Home.

William W. Woodward lived in Dayton, Ohio, before he moved to Sandusky. He too was a Civil War veteran. W.W. Woodward served as an officer in several different units during the war. He was 2^nd Lieutenant in the 1^st Ohio Infantry; Captain in the 44^th Ohio infantry; Captain in the 8^th Ohio Cavalry; and he was a Colonel in the 166^th U.S.C.T.

Mr. Hoover and Mr. Woodward married sisters, both daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Elijah Zinn from Shelby County, Ohio. Mrs. Jennie Zinn Woodward died in the West House in Sandusky, when she was only forty one years old. She left behind two young children. After Frederick Hoover’s death in 1894, his widow Margaret Zinn Hoover assisted W.W. Woodward in the wholesale grocery business. Mr. Woodward married Florence Hadley in 1898.  In 1910, W.W. Woodward went into a partnership with M.J. Bender, with Mr. Bender serving as the president of the company, and Mr. Woodward serving as vice-president. The Bender Woodward wholesale grocery store was much larger than the original building of the Hoover Woodward store.

 W.W. Woodward died on April 5, 1913. He was buried in the family lot at Oakland Cemetery. Mr. Woodward's daughter Cora married another Sandusky businessman, Gustav Jarecki. Frederick E. Hoover, in his estate, left an amount totaling several thousand dollars to the College of Wooster to be used towards a dormitory for women and the education of men.

M.J. Bender, Sandusky Grocer

From about 1896 to 1902, M.J. Bender, Jr. operated a grocery store at the southwest corner of Hancock and Monroe Streets. A large quantity of canned goods can be seen in the windows of the Bender grocery, and signs on the building advertised teas, spices, crockery, tobacco products, and H-O Buckwheat. Around the turn of the twentieth century, the interurban railway traveled down Hancock Street, making shopping easy for area residents.

In 1908, M.J. Bender had moved his business to the southeast corner of Hancock and Water Streets. By 1910, Mr. Bender went into business with W. W. Woodward. M.J. Bender was the president of the company, and W. W. Woodward was the Vice President. (Mr. Woodward had previously been associated with Hoover-Woodward.) The Bender-Woodward store, which operated as a wholesale grocery business, was in operation in Sandusky until 1939.

In the 1920s Benwood brand food products were canned by the Bender Woodward Grocery. In an advertisement in the January 23, 1926 issue of the Sandusky Register, Hunt’s Quality Market carried several varieties of Benwood canned vegetables that had been processed at Bender Woodward. Benwood foods carried by Hunt’s market included canned peas, corn, kidney beans, wax beans, and two different types of canned tomatoes.

Martin J. Bender, Jr. passed away on September 23, 1948. He was buried in Oakland Cemetery. Mr. Bender was survived by his wife Helen, a son, daughter, and three grandchildren. An obituary for Martin J. Bender, Jr. is in the 1948 Obituary Notebook, housed with the genealogical books of the Sandusky Library.