Heinz Bender

Heinz Bender was born in Solinghem, Germany on June 14, 1909. He apprenticed in his father’s bakery and then moved to the US in 1928, later becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen.¹ Once in the United States, Bender found work as a baker in several New York city pastry shops, luxury hotels, and the Princeton Club. and hotels, including The Roosevelt and The Lexington. During World War II, Bender baked fruit cakes that the Lexington Hotel sent to former employees who were serving in the military. Bender’s fruit cakes would later become a favorite in the White House. After the war, Bender worked as a chef for the Princeton Club in Manhattan.² In February 1968, he was hired to be pastry chef at the White House.³ 

Bender served as the White House Pastry Chef for eleven years under four presidents. He prepared desserts for the first family and for official White House functions, including President Gerald Ford’s State Dinner for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip in 1976.⁴ He also helped make a cake for First Daughter Tricia Nixon’s wedding, held in the White House Rose Garden in 1971. The cake was nearly seven feet tall and weighed over 300 pounds. The White House released a scaled down recipe ahead of the wedding in anticipation that Americans would want to make their own versions at home, but the recipe was defective, with the batter often overflowing when baked. Bender and the White House received some criticism for the botched recipe, and a newspaper from the time dubbed the incident “the Great Cake Controversy.”⁵ The actual cake Bender served at the wedding did not have the same issue and instead impressed the guests. 

On August 20, 1971, shortly after Tricia Nixon’s wedding, Bender married Shirley Bailey, the executive housekeeper at the White House. The two met at work, with Bailey’s office located close to the kitchen. The pair kept their nuptials a secret for three months before finally revealing their relationship to the first family who supported the match and gave them a wedding gift. It was the second marriage for both Bender and Bailey and each already had children. They moved to Silver Spring, Maryland where they lived while continuing to work together in the White House.⁶ 

Bender enjoyed his work, remarking to a journalist in 1968: “Let’s face it, it’s quite an honor to be pastry chef at the White House - sometimes it’s not the money. A job like this has prestige.”⁷ He retired on January 1, 1979. Later in life, he moved to Longboat Key, Florida, where he passed away on February 4, 1993 at the age of 83.⁸ He is buried in Rockland Cemetery in New York.⁹