Man on 'Cream of Wheat' logo finally gets tombstone

LESLIE, Mich. -- A man widely believed to be the model for the smiling chef on Cream of Wheat boxes finally has a grave marker bearing his name.

Frank L. White died in 1938, and until this week, his grave in Woodlawn Cemetery bore only a tiny concrete marker with no name.

On Wednesday, a granite gravestone was placed at his burial site. It bears his name and an etching taken from the man depicted on the Cream of Wheat box.

Jesse Lasorda, a family researcher from Lansing, started the campaign to put the marker and etching on White's grave.

"Everybody deserves a headstone," Lasorda told the Lansing State Journal. He discovered that White was born about 1867 in Barbados, came to the United States in 1875 and became a citizen in 1890.

A box of Cream of Wheat was shown in Detroit on Thursday. The man widely believed to be the model for the Cream of Wheat man, a smiling white-hatted chef whose face has greeted breakfasting Americans for more than a century, finally has a grave marker bearing his name and image. Frank L. White died in 1938 may have been an American icon. His grave in Leslie, Mich., bore only a tiny concrete marker with no name. That ended Wednesday, June 13 when a rose granite stone and etching of what is believed to be his likeness were placed at his burial site. (Associated Press)

When White died Feb. 15, 1938, the Leslie Local-Republican described him as a "famous chef" who "posed for an advertisement of a well-known breakfast food."

White lived in Leslie for about the last 20 years of his life, and the story of his posing for the Cream of Wheat picture was known in the city of 2,000 between Jackson and Lansing and about 70 miles west of Detroit.

The chef was photographed about 1900 while working in a Chicago restaurant. His name was not recorded. White was a chef, traveled a lot, was about the right age and told neighbors that he was the Cream of Wheat model, the Jackson Citizen Patriot said.

Long owned by Kraft Foods Inc., the Cream of Wheat brand was sold this year to B&G Foods Inc.