Date of Birth: 
About Jerome Monroe Smucker
- Jerome Monroe Smucker (December 5, 1858 in Wayne County, Ohio – March 20, 1948 in Wayne County, Ohio) was an American farmer and businessman who founded The J.M.
- Smucker Company in 1897, starting out selling apple butter from the back of a horse-drawn wagon.
- He was of Swiss descent. Smucker was the son of Ohio Mennonite farmers Gideon and Magadalena (Zook) Smucker.
- He built the family business to four farms and a creamery, while spending his evenings tutoring his neighbors in good penmanship.
- When he added a cider mill in 1897, Smucker's first batch of apples came from some of Johnny Appleseed's original orchards.
- To extend sales of apple products year-round, Smucker began manufacturing apple butter from an old family recipe, and it soon became his most popular product.
- Smucker's began listing the ingredients of its many jams and jellies years before it was required by law, and the business was incorporated in 1921.
- The company's namesake died in 1948, but the business is still family-owned, and still headquartered in Jerome Smucker's home town of Orrville, Ohio. On March 23, 1890 Smucker married Ella M.
- Yoder, of Bristol, Ind., who predeceased him on March 6, 1933.
- Early in life he accepted Christ as his Savior and united with the Oak Grove Mennonite Church near Smithville, Ohio, later becoming a charter member of the Orrville Mennonite Church.
- He was an active Christian worker, serving the Sunday school as teacher and superintendent for many years.
- He was also greatly interested in the educational and missionary activities of the church, supporting the work through his prayers and liberal giving.
- He was a lifelong resident of the Orrville community, where he attained prominence by founding the manufacturing company which bears his name.
- Funeral services were held at the Oak Grove Church on March 23, in charge of V.
- M.
- Gerig and I.
- W.
- Royer.
- Interment was made in the Crown Hill Cemetery at Orrville. The distinctive surname was originally Schmucker, when Smucker's great-great-grandfather came to America from Switzerland in the 1700s.
- It was later spelled Smoker for about two generations, before the family's forebearers grew uncomfortable with a name that suggested tobacco use and took to spelling the name Smucker.
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