It's Happening: The Hess House, Lions and Hidden Historical Gems
By Julie Perine on July 19, 2015 via Connect-Bridgeport.com
At the recent Benedum Fellows Banquet, my husband Jeff and I sat with a lively group of community folks. Among them were Drs. Mike and Beth Hess. Mike shared a story at our table that both brought back childhood memories and contributed to the legacy of the event’s guest of honor.
He was talking about the house where he and his siblings – including my good friend Mary Kay – grew up. You know the house; the one on the corner of Philadelphia Avenue and Worthington Drive that greets visitors with a pair of stone lions. Living there long before Dr. Robert and Alice Jo Hess raised their five children in the house, it was occupied by the sisters of Michael Benedum.
I was in and out of that house for several years during the 1970s. I remember a lot about how it looked, including the very cool breakfast room and our favorite sleepover spot, the attic. I also remember the big bathroom smelling like medicine.
If I knew back then that it was the former Benedum home and contained some of the historical family's furnishings, I didn’t give it much thought. Funny. Mike said sort of the same thing.
“For the longest time I didn’t realize I lived in a house full of fancy furniture. To us, while we were growing up, it was just a chair or table or nightstand. I guess I knew our dining room table was special because it was larger than those in my friends’ houses – but still, I never thought anything of it. It was just where we ate and did our homework,” he said.
But as he grew up, he said, he gained quite an appreciation for the house where he was raised.
The story he told us drove that point home. During all the years he and his brothers and sisters were growing up, there was a bureau in his parents’ bedroom that he walked or ran past many, many times. Inside the drawers, Dr. and Mrs. Hess kept odds and ends, but again, nothing of interest to young Mike or his siblings John, Mary Kay, Monica and (little) Joe.
It was in the late ‘90s after Mrs. Hess passed away that Mike ended up with that bureau at the home where he and Beth were starting their own family.
“My father remarried and they were remodeling,” Mike said. “The bureau was pretty good size and they asked if I wanted it at my house; otherwise, they were going to give it away.”
Even after traveling across town to its new destination, the bureau drawers remained closed for sometime.
“It sat there for a couple of years I think until a piece fell of it and I opened it up to put the piece in there,” Mike said.
Inside the drawer were various trinkets, including those - such as old Currier and Ives prints - which were gifted to his dad from pharmaceutical companies. There were also various family photographs. Mike said he got curious and kept looking through the drawer.
“At the very bottom, there was this grayish cardboard with kind of a fancy emblem and nice border around it. It reminded me of the senior pictures that Mr. Nichols used to take of us,” Mike said. “It was interesting looking, so I opened it up and I was shocked at what I saw.” 
The picture was of Michael Benedum and along with the photograph was a handwritten letter from the late great Bridgeport benefactor to his sister Sophie. The reality of what he had discovered struck Mike hard.
“I was in shock. This was a picture Michael Benedum had given to his sister. I immediately closed it up and looked up Ruth Allen’s phone number in the phone book,” Mike said. “I knew that picture didn’t belong with me. It belonged in a museum or something and I knew Ruth and Bob would know what to do with it. I couldn’t think of anyone else in town that would be more appropriate to call.”
Mike remembers that Ruth was pleased to get the call and to hear about his find. The photograph wound up at Bridgeport City Hall. It is framed and displayed for all to see.
Since his discovery of the photo, Mike has acquired a couple of other items from his homestead, the same home in which Michael Benedum visited his siblings.
Mike said had he known when he was a kid what he has come to realize in recent years, he might have felt differently about his childhood home – including that massive dining room table.
“Gosh, if I had known the history behind it, maybe I wouldn’t have colored on it - or picked away at the claws of the lions’ feet,” he said.
Editor’s Notes: I believe the late Paul Whiteman told me several years ago that the Hess family home at the corner of Philadelphia Avenue and Worthington Drive was purchased – or maybe built - by Benedum’s dad Emanuel AKA the Squire for his girls, neither who ever married. Does anyone know if that is so? Or do you have other information about the home’s history?
Picture of the photograph discovered by Mike Hess, now displayed at Bridgeport City Hall, is courtesy of City Clerk Andrea Kerr. Also pictured is the group of city folks who shared our table at the Benedum Fellows Banquet. Pictured are Mike and Beth Hess, Dr. Craig Liebig, Jesse Liebig. Not pictured is Lea Trippett.
Julie Perine can be reached at 304-848-7200, julie@connect-bridgeport.com or follow @JuliePerine on Twitter!