Walter Henry Bender was born on July 22, 1879 in Milwaukee County, the son of William Harrison Bender and Nellie Bender and the grandson of Peter Bender, an early Wisconsin pioneer. Walter Bender attended Milwaukee public schools, graduating from the old East Side High School in 1896. He then enrolled in the Milwaukee Normal School, completing his course there in 1898, and subsequently enrolled at the University of Wisconsin Law School in Madison, from which he received an LL. B. degree in 1901.
After graduation Bender opened law offices in Milwaukee. In 1906 he was elected assistant city attorney and served until 1910, when he resigned in order to form the law firm later known as Hoyt, Bender, and McIntyre. Also in 1910, Bender married Catherine Dalgleish, daughter of one of the early Scottish settlers of Milwaukee. He interrupted his private law practice for one year in 1918 to accept an appointment as deputy attorney general of Wisconsin, after which he returned to Hoyt, Bender, and McIntyre. He continued as a member of this firm until his retirement.
A leading civic figure, Bender was elected president of the Milwaukee County Park Commission in 1948 and held the post for a record seventeen years. While president, Bender helped plan such facilities as the new Milwaukee County Zoo, the Mitchell Park Conservatory, the Marina, and the County Stadium. When he retired in July 1965, his fellow commissioners created the office of president emeritus for him in recognition of his service.
In addition, Bender was secretary of the Milwaukee YMCA from 1907 to 1925 and later a director and president of its board of trustees. He was president of the Milwaukee Bar Association in 1930, a member of the Wisconsin and American Bar Associations, president of the City Club in 1925-1926, president of the Citizens' Governmental Research Bureau from 1937 to 1942, and on its board of trustees for over thirty years. Bender was also a trustee of the Allis-Chalmers Foundation, Inc., Marquette University School of Medicine, Milwaukee-Downer College, the Kearney Welfare Foundation, and the League of Women Voters Foundation. He was active in the Community Welfare Council, the United Community and War Fund, the Metropolitan War Memorial, Inc., and the Joint Committee on Consolidation in Milwaukee County. Also involved in religious organizations, Bender was co-chairman of the Milwaukee Chapter of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, an elder of Calvary Presbyterian Church, vice president and trustee of the Presbyterian Student Headquarters Foundation at Madison, and a trustee of the Milwaukee Presbytery. For his civic activities, Bender received many awards, including the Caroline Bigelow McGeoch award of the Milwaukee League of Women Voters in 1949, the Cosmopolitan Club service award in 1957, and the community service award of the Milwaukee Foundation in 1957.
In 1958, Catherine Dalgleish Bender died. Bender then married Mrs. Edna Wickwerth the next year. She died in October 1965. Walter Henry Bender died of cancer in Mount Sinai Hospital, Milwaukee, on May 29, 1966.
