West Bend, WI – If you live in West Bend or Washington County, chances are you have a family member or two that worked for the West Bend Company.
It was one of the largest employers in the community as entire families would be on the lines manufacturing aluminum cookware or electrical appliances.
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The West Bend Company was a place where men met their wives, where their children worked and their children. In 2010 the West Bend Co./Regal Ware Museum held an open house as part of a year-long celebration.
Mixed in with the pots and pans were murals that traced the timeline and marketing of the cookware along with the changing roles of women.
‘In the 1950s the wife was depicted as the queen of the house but with limited independence. Women were to be devoted to house, husband and family.’
Pictured beneath the short description was a woman, sitting on the floor amidst pots and pans wearing a simple teal blue dress with white piping and pearl earrings.
That woman was Nancy Mehring, a volunteer at the open house wearing the same outfit from when the photo was taken in 1958.
“It was 53 years ago, and I was like a girl sitting there dreaming about getting married,” said Mehring recalling her inspiration.
Mehring started work at the West Bend Company when she was 17, in high school and her last name was Furger.
“I was in the wholesale and premium division. I worked for Harold Ziegler, Bernie Ziegler, Allan Kieckhafer, Bob Claus and Harry Haugen as a stenographer and office gal or secretary until I earned enough money to go to college,” she said.
Back in the day the West Bend Company was in its prime; 1,100 people worked in the factory and police were needed to direct traffic at the intersection along Hwy 33 when shift changes occurred at 3:30 p.m.
Families were the bedrock of the workforce at the West Bend Company. Mehring’s father Ed Furger worked at the company as did her Aunt Ann Rossman, Aunt Loretta Furger Paasch, and Aunt Rita Schwinn.
Mehring’s brief modeling career started at the West Bend Company as industry leaders were trying to toe the bottom line.
“West Bend Company tried to keep prices down and they used staff for the photos and booklets,” said Mehring. The photos were taken in the company’s test kitchen. Mehring made about $1 an hour and said there were no fringe benefits and her dress was simply what she wore to work. “I think I got this at J.C. Penny’s,” she said, the dress now faded a bit to a soft, powder blue.
Kitchen Craft and Lustre Craft were big products at the time for the West Bend Company which placed ads nationally in newspapers across the country and Modern Bride magazine.
Mehring has a scrapbook of clippings of the ad including one that ran in an Iowa newspaper.
Nobody ever saw the ads in West Bend, the only way people in town may have caught Mehring in print was if they bought the cookware; her photo, pleasantly flipping hamburgers on a stove filled with Kitchen Craft stainless steel cookware, was on the front of the cookbook included with each piece.
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On Saturday, April 23, 2016, there was a West Bend Company reunion. It coincided with an open house as the former factory that was known for making pots and pans has been repurposed into the new Cast Iron Luxury Living Apartments.
Correction to historical marker – Oct. 24, 2013
An effort is underway to make corrections to the new state historical marker on North Main Street which pays tribute to the West Bend Aluminum Company.
A story posted in the Sept. 28 issue of the Daily News highlighted the six-foot marker which was dedicated to the memory of J.R. Brown. The marker was funded by Brown’s three daughters Sally Brown Frahm, Dee Brestin, and Bonnie Rock.
However, while reviewing the marker a pair of spelling mistakes were found and the Brown sisters were contacted. This week a note from Bonnie Rock was sent to the state historical society and the Ziegler family.
It read: Judy Steffes, who wrote the article on the WB Company marker for the Washington Count/West Bend Daily News, alerted me to two mistakes in the text of the marker. These were affirmed by a source at the Washington County Historical Society. We are most appreciative of all that everyone concerned with the marker has done, and we are thrilled that it is in place.
Yesterday, I talked to Doug Ziegler, who most of you know, is Bernhard Carl Ziegler’s son. He knows that his father’s name was never spelled with a “t” as it is on the marker. In addition, though the autobiography of Bernhard Ziegler dictated by him in 1937 uses the name S. F. Meyer, Doug agrees with the Washington County Historical Society that the name should be S.F. Mayer.
Looking through my files, I realized that my sisters and I saw a draft of the marker containing these errors. We are sorry we missed the Bernhardt mistake and were not familiar with how Mayer should be spelled. So that the marker is historically correct, and because we wish to honor the Ziegler and Mayer families, it is important to make the changes. Sewah (Sewah Studios is a manufacturer of cast aluminum historic markers) indicates that corrections can be made on site and are not too difficult. I will send the document from Sewah to Craig Hoeppner and discuss with him how to proceed. Bonnie Rock
