Above is an arial photo of the Fate Root Heath facilities taken in the 1950s. The buildings above the dotted line were the original Fate divisions while the building below the line were the original Root Heath divisions which at the time were exclusively manufacturing the mower sharpners.

Last week, I drove Ole Ned, one of our demo vans, up to Plymouth Ohio for the once in a lifetime reunion of the descendants of the Fate Root Heath family. The Fate Root Heath Company created the SIP Grinder division in 1902 with the world’s first commercially viable reel mower sharpener. I was honored to be the only non-descendant invited and gave a presentation on the history of the SIP Grinder division to become what is now SIP Corporation. As I said earlier, the SIP Division was the smallest division of the Fate Root Heath Company but it is the only still in business. Another presentation was given by the grandson of the last Fate male in the Fate Root Heath Company and he has written a yet to be published book on the company’s origins. I, of course found it fascinating. While I knew the Root Brothers started leather working equipment business in 1892 and started the grinder division in 1902, I did not realize that they actually started in business two generations earlier as cobblers and leather workers themselves sometime in the 1840s and then transitioned into making leather working tools. I learned a lot of history I did not know. This has motivated me to greatly expand our history page on this website with a lot more picture just as soon as that book comes out.