John R. Oishei

John R. Oishei (18 January 1886 – 27 January 1968) was a businessman who founded Trico products and became one of Buffalo’s wealthiest citizens and philanthropists. Early life John R. Oishei was born in Buffalo in 1886 to Charles Humbert Oishei and Julia (Roffo) Oishei. Oishei's grandfather, Giuseppe "Joseph" Oishei, immigrated to the United States from Lombardy, Italy in 1859. By 1868, Joseph owned a saloon on Buffalo's Prime Street and by 1861, owned another saloon and restaurant on Ohio Street in Buffalo. Joseph married Adelheide Von Wildt and had three children: Charles (John's father), Aurelia and Amelia. At the time of Joseph's death in 1878, he owned the Golden Gate Hotel at 160 Exchange Street in Buffalo. Charles, aged 19, took over responsibility for the family for his deceased father and by 1890, graduated from Buffalo Law School and set up a law practice. Oishei was one of eight children to Charles and Julia: John R. Oishei, Stella Oishei, Camilla Oishei, Bertha Oishei, Charles Oishei Jr., Bernard Oishei, Florence Oishei, and William Oishei. Julia died, aged 40, in 1904, and Charles remarried to Leonora Oishei and had three more children: Muriel Oishei, Harriet Oishei, and Willis Oishei. Career In 1916, Oishei was traveling down Delaware Avenue near Virginia Street in downtown Buffalo during a rainstorm. A bicyclist ran into the National Roadster he was driving at the time. Oishei never saw him coming, and even though the cyclist was not seriously injured, Oishei vowed to never let that happen again. He sought out the best technology available at the time to create the first automobile wiper blades and grew the idea from a simple fix to worldwide use. In 1917, John R. Oishei founded Trico Products Corporation He looked around for a way to clear moisture from a driver's line of vision, and decided to invest in the national marketing of an edged, hand-pulled rubber squeegee that was produced in Buffalo by an engineer named John Jepson. Within three years, Oishei's sales team had successfully sold the accessory to Packard, Lincoln, Cadillac and Buffalo's own Pierce-Arrow.