Jesse “Joseph” Preston Bender’s WWII Draft Registration

After his youngest two children died in a house fire in November of 1942, Joseph (the name which he was going by at the time) sent his two youngest surviving sons Charles and Harold to a farm where they would be taken care of as payment for working on the farm. His son Jack remained with his mother Elizabeth Jenkins and his father.

According to Jack the couple argued a lot, and eventually divorced. It seems that by the time that Joseph gave information for the WWII draft in 1942 he and Elizabeth had possibly parted ways, but they also tended to move around a bit and it is unlikely that mail or news was reaching them as well as it could. “Jess Preston Bender” was still living in Wayne County, Michigan but listed his nearest relative as “Mr. L. Fast”. I know that Jesse was close with his maternal uncle Clemons “Clem” Fast, but had no uncles with “L” names.

I found a Mr. Lloyd Raymond Fast living in Grosse Point, Wayne, Michigan at the time of the draft. His place of business matched Jesse’s address for “Mr. L. Fast” even more interesting was that this Lloyd Raymond Fast gave his place of birth as Neptune, Ohio which is located in Jesse’s native Mercer County, OH very near Jesse’s birthplace of Dublin Twp.

Looking further into Lloyd, I found that he is the son of George Branaman Fast (1846-1920) and Martha Cecilia Nelson (1861-1954). George B. Fast was the younger brother of Jacob Ginter Fast (1840-1912), Jesse’s paternal grandfather.