She Helped Found Market on Island : Balboa Merchant Mina Hershey Dies

Mina Hershey, who along with her husband founded Hershey’s Market on Balboa Island and helped turn the island into a bustling business area, died Thursday after an eight-month bout with lymphoma. She was 92.

A German immigrant, Mrs. Hershey and her Swiss husband, Anton, opened the Marine Avenue store in 1928. At that time Balboa was mostly a desolate island. It had only three businesses, two wooden bridges, and about 300 homes--mostly beach cottages.

The Hersheys came to the United States in 1923 and lived in Santa Ana with American sponsors. They could speak no English, but they both took jobs at a Balboa Island open-air market owned by their sponsor.

Later, Mrs. Hershey and her husband purchased the market they once worked in and renamed it Hershey’s. By then, both had learned fluent English after going to night school for three years.

In 1931, Mrs. Hershey and her husband, who had been a landscaper in Switzerland, built a nursery and a small restaurant on a site where the Village Inn now sits. After the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, the Hersheys became the first business on Balboa Island to own a liquor license. The restaurant became a favorite with the locals and movie people who frequented the island.

Mrs. Hershey and her husband managed the store for 43 years until he died in 1971. She then took over for another eight years before she sold it and retired. The restaurant was later converted into the Village Inn and leased.

She is survived by her daughter Ruth Finley, who is a Huntington Beach City Council member, and her grandchildren, Tony and Susan Finley.

Services are pending. The family has requested that donations be made to the Balboa Island Improvement Assn., or that flowers be sent to the service.

Mrs. Hershey’s remains will be cremated and dispersed near her Balboa Island home and in Germany.