Howard Covode Heinz

Howard Covode Heinz

President, H.J. Heinz & Company

• https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/59766270/howard-covode-heinz
• https://johnheinzlegacy.org/heinz/heinzfamily.html
• https://www.heinz.org/about-us/history
• https://househistree.com/houses/greenlawn

Howard and Elizabeth Rust Heinz

Howard Covode Heinz was born in 1877 to H.J. Heinz and his wife, Sallie. Raised with an ethic of hard work and community obligation, he worked in the company’s factories and salting stations around the country as a youth. Howard graduated from Yale in 1900 and began his executive career.

In 1906, Howard married Elizabeth Granger Rust from Saginaw, Michigan. Elizabeth’s family, the Rusts, were involved in the lumber business in Michigan. As a young woman, she attended the fashionable Ogontz School for Young Ladies near Philadelphia, and she was an avid bridge player. In 1908, their son H.J. “Jack” Heinz II was born, followed in 1913 by another son named Rust.

During Howard’s tenure as president of the Heinz Company, World War I broke out and he would come to have a role in the aftermath of the hostilities. Beginning in 1917, Howard served as United States Food Administrator for Pennsylvania. At the end of the war, in December 1918, Herbert Hoover, director of food relief, cabled Howard and asked him to serve as Director-General of American Relief Administration for Southeast Europe and Asia Minor. Howard willingly accepted and departed for Constantinople, where he would remain until his father’s death in May of 1919 called him home. During his time away, Elizabeth, or "Betty," as Howard called her, wrote frequently and was very supportive.

The decades of the 1920s and 1930s saw Howard at the top of his game. The ’20s saw expansions to thousands of acres, 69 branch offices and nearly 1,400 salesmen. Howard controlled the finances and traveled extensively to oversee this vast international empire.

With the onset of the Great Depression, Howard’s exceptional business skills, exercised during the ’20s, paid off. The company had no debt and was actually able to expand its markets and its workforce at a time when other companies were closing their doors. In fact, it was during this time that son Jack was off to Australia to set up a new factory.

Also during the 1930s, Jack and Rust were completing their educations and beginning their own careers. Jack would apprentice himself at the company, and Rust began designing automobiles in Pasadena, California. He designed the Comet, a delivery vehicle for the Heinz Company, and the Phantom Corsair, a futuristic vehicle with the ultimate in safety features. The car was even featured in the movie The Young in Heart with Paulette Goddard and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Ironically, there was only ever one Corsair made, as Rust lost his life in an automobile accident in July of 1939.

As the 1940s approached, war loomed on the horizon for Europe and tragedy again befell the Heinz family. This time, it would have to be H.J. Heinz II who would see the company through. Howard died in early 1941 after suffering a stroke following a medical procedure in Philadelphia. With his will, the Howard Heinz Endowment was established.

Elizabeth Heinz continued to live in their Morewood Heights home in Pittsburgh until her death in 1952.