SERVICES HELD FOR FRANK BENCH

Funeral services were held Wednesday March 31 in the North Ward Chapel, for Arthur Frank Bench.

The speakers were John L. Bench, L. R. Anderson, Eric Ludvigson, H. G. Brown and Bishop E. T. Reid.

Musical numbers were rendered by the chorus, Mr. and Mrs. E. E. Johnson, Merrill Maylott, and Mrs. Edwin Neilson and Janice Neilson. The invocation was offered by W. Lee Hall, and the benediction by A. P. Madsen.

Mr. Bench was born in Manti, Nov. 4, 1871, a son of George E. and Jane Horton Bench. He married Alice Hoggan, Nov. 23, 1898. She with ten sons and daughters survives: Arthur, Salt Lake City; Eldon, Blaine, and Reed, Manti; Mrs. McKelvey, Mrs. Ethel Bessey, Alice and Shirley, Manti; Mrs. Bernice Whiting, Salt Lake City.

Five sisters and one brother, Wilford Bench, Mrs. F. W. Cox, Mrs. F. M. Cox, Mrs. John Hall, Manti; Mrs. L. A. Lauber, Salt Lake City and Mrs. Clarke LArson, Gunnison.

-Manti Messinger, April 9, 1937, transcribed by Rhonda Holton

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Arthur Frank Bench was born to Jane Hortin and George Edward Bench Sr.. Arthur's father built a big home. In the early 1880's we can picture the Bench family, seven girls and three boys, scampering through the high-ceilinged rooms or gathering around the long table in the big kitchen eating freshly baked bread, recently taken from the large oven in the black, coal stove. Fresh milk, with thick cream, yellow pats of butter and jars of plum preserves were brought from the cool earthen cellar. A trap door in the one corner of the kitchen was lifted with a rope handle and opened to the stone steps that led to the cellar.

With the constant demands on the meager income of the Bench family, George realized that added funds were needed as well as more work to keep his sons and daughters busy, to teach them the important habits of industry, honesty and thrift.

The Bench House" location was such that it could be commercialized and made into a rooming house and a public eating place. Jane was an excellent cook and the older girls could help her. The younger ones could wait on tables and take care of the guest rooms. The "Bench House" was a vital part of the community as many wedding, funerals and plays were performed in the house. George loved to perform in these plays.