Henri Willis Bendel

Born on January 22, 1868, to a Jewish family in Vermillionville, Louisiana (today Lafayette), the son of Mary (née Plonsky) and William Louis Bendel. Both his parents were immigrants: his father from Austria, and his mother from Prussia. His father died when he was six years old. His mother was an astute businesswoman who owned and operated a retail furniture outlet, a drug store, a dry goods store, and an undertaking parlor. She remarried in 1878 to Benjamin Falk, who would become one of the most successful Lafayette businessmen of his time. They operated a dry goods store above which was Falk's Opera House that provided vaudevillian and opera entertainment. Henri graduated from the Jesuit-run St. Charles College in Grand Coteau, Louisiana, and converted to Christianity either as a student or shortly after completing his studies.

In 1894, Henri Bendel married Blanche Lehman, a daughter of Aaron Lehman and a member of the Lehman family, whom he had met while she was visiting friends in Morgan City. His wife died in childbirth in July 1895 along with the baby. Bendel never remarried. Henri Bendel died suddenly on March 22, 1936, at his home at 399 Park Avenue in Manhattan. A generous employer, in 1923 he had given his employees a forty-five percent equity in the business, a gift with a book value at the time of $1.8 million. In his will, he made Abraham Beekman Bastedo, his companion for over 30 years, one of the principal benefactors of his estate. Bastedo received $200,000 and a large shareholding in the business, plus the use of his country estate.

Bendel Road in Lafayette, Louisiana, is named in his honor.