The Dixon Telegraph (Dixon, Illinois)

May 5, 1950

Mrs. A. E. Bennet

Mrs. A. E. Bennett, wife of  A. E. (Ed) Bennett of Tampico, died at 7:30 this morning in the Bellevue hospital, Waterman, Ill., where she had been a patient for about one week.

The funeral will be held in Tampco, Monday May 8 at 2 p.m. C. S. T., with interment in Oakwood Memorial Mausoleum, Dixon.

Also, from an old newsclipping from the Tampico Tornado newspaper:

MRS. A. E. BENNETT  LAID AT REST

Funeral services for Mrs. A. E. Bennett were held at two o’clock Monday afternoon in the Methodist Church. Rev. Henry Austin, pastor, was assisted by Rev. Hollis Wharton of Walnut, former pastor of the Tampico church.

The senior choir with Mrs. Neva Denison at the piano sang “Oh Zion Haste,” “Hark, Hark, My Soul” and “Rock of Ages.”

Mr. and Mrs. R. E. McKenzie and Mrs. Robert Schmitt were in charge of the beautiful flowers.

Friends who served as casket bearers were Paul Wetzell, Fred V. Peter, J. J. Kepner, Herbert Ackerson, Ora and Vernon Newman.  The business houses closed during the service as a mark of respect. A large number of Tampico friends accompanied the funeral cortege to Dixon where the body was laid at rest in the Oakwood Memorial Mausoleum. Rev. Austin conducted the committal service and all joined in singing “Blest Be the Tie That Binds.” Mary Frances, daughter of Rowland and Phoebe Catherine Peckham, was born on a farm in Kendall County about one and a half miles west of Bristol.

She attended the county and town schools, Jennings seminary at Aurora, and graduated from the normal and scientific courses in the Dixon Northern Illinois Normal school with the degree of Bachelor of Science. She also studied elocution under a Mrs. Boucher in the same school.

Mrs. Bennett taught the primary department n two schools for a period of about seven and eight years each. It was at the close of the school year at Compton on June 9, 1908 that she was united in marriage to A. E. (Ed) Bennett, who was then engaged business at that place.  Selling his business in Compton, Oct. 1914, they came to Tampico in 1915, having purchased the mercantile business of the late Mr. and Mrs. W.H. Harrison.

Mrs. Bennett heeded the call of the Holy Spirit at an early age and united with the Methodist church in Bristol in here early teens.

She always enjoyed the Sunday school and taught various classes in the same. But her greatest love was for the missionary branch of which she was district secretary in 1925-26.

Mrs. Bennett was a member of Morning Star chapter Order of Eastern Star, Tampico and Palestine Shrine, Order of the White Shrine of Jerusalem, Morrison.

For the past six years, due to failing health all of the above activities were discontinued.

All that medical and nursing skill could provide had been administered, but Friday morning, May 5^th, at 7:30, the God who gave it received her immortal spirit into everlasting life. She leaves in passing, the husband, Mr. and Mrs. Claude Gorton, nephew and niece of Aurora, and many friends.