Hodes Zink Manufacturing CompanyThe Hodes-Zink Manufacturing Company began operations December 1917 at a second floor location in downtown Fremont, Ohio. A. K. Hodes and Howard E. Zink were equal partners in the business with Hodes overseeing production and Zink focusing on sales of their products. The company’s first major products were storm fronts for buggies but they soon expanded into producing accessories for newly popular automobiles. Some of these accessories included radiator and hood covers, top recovers, and rear and side curtains for touring cars and roadsters. The Hodes-Zink Company developed a system of using patterns of each model and mass producing each item which were sold under the trademark Sure-Fit.
The company prospered and grew. In 1921 they moved to the corner of Napoleon and Lynn Streets in Fremont, Ohio and in 1923 incorporated. Hodes-Zink Manufacturing Company opened a facility in Passaic, New Jersey in 1936 to service the eastern trade outlets and added a second plant in Fremont, Ohio on Jefferson Street.
A.K. Hodes died suddenly in late November 1938. With the purchases of his assets by Mr. Zink the company name was changed to the Howard Zink Corporation. Purchasing another plant at Charleston, Mississippi in 1939 the firm’s primary focus shifted to the production of automobile seat covers which were widely sold under local and national names. Other products were cushions, seat pads, mother’s utility bags, nationally famous baby pals, reflectorized outdoor highway signs, and advertising display signs. A west coast plant opened in 1945 at Long Beach, California and the Consolite Sign Division was purchased in 1947.
Upon the death of Howard Zink in 1957 Jack Zink became president and general manager of the corporation. With his physical condition a factor (Jack Zink suffered severe injuries to both legs in World War II), Jack Zink announced the sale of the company, with the exception of the Consolite Division, to Indian Head Mills January 1966. The company became part of Crawford Manufacturing. In the next 40 years the company went through several changes of owner and name: 1969-Starlite Industries bought the firm and changed the name back to Zink due to its reputation; 1977-the name was changed to Starlite; 1984-Wynn International took over the business and named it Wynn’s Automotive; 1986-Bestop, Inc. split from Wynn’s; 1989-Bestop split, selling half the company to Saddleman, Inc. which took the Fremont, Ohio facility and changed the name to LeBra Products.
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My mother, Florence Otermat Waggoner Hetrick, must have worked for Ms. Newberger - she was there in the early 40s. Mom had learned to sew on her mother's White treadle-operated machine at home. She was the operator groups touring the factory would stop by and watch her create seat covers. My dad, John Homer Waggoner, used to fill the factory vending machines on his route and would always look out for sights of Florence. IThey became reunited after the Armistice (on a corner downtown on Front), and married in December 1945, taking a year's trip driving all around the USA so Dad could rest his nerves after the war. Howard Zink and my father were friends when young, and attended the same church in the country.
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