Gordon Berry Bennett

Gordon was born August 13, 1928, in Baltimore, Maryland to Ruth and Rufus Bennett. He grew up in the town of Geneva, Illinois, and graduated from Geneva High School, Class of 1946. His great grandfather, Henry L. Bennett, founded the Bennett Milling Company in Geneva in 1865, which would become a center of commerce in Geneva for nearly a century. As a teenager, Gordon worked there helping his father who was the last Bennett to run the pioneering Midwest mill. Gordon attended the University of Illinois and went on to earn his B.S. at Northwest Missouri State College in 1950. He married Dolores J. Terlap of Waukegan, Illinois, in April 1953. He served in the U.S. Army as an Audit Specialist and was stationed in France from 1954 to 1956. Gordon and Lorrie raised two children, Diane and Stephen in St. Charles, Illinois.

Although Gordon was a professional accountant by day, his true passion in life, besides his family, was being physically active. An avid weightlifter beginning in his thirties and an active gym member into his nineties, keeping fit allowed him to enjoy all the outdoor activities he loved. Gordon was an expert sailor and downhill skier, in the days when both these sports (minus today’s technology) were physically demanding and required real skill. When he wasn’t sailing, skiing, or riding his bike, he was taking beautiful photographs of everywhere he went.

His love of being on the water began in childhood when he and his brother discovered an abandoned rowboat stuck in the dam near the Bennett Mill in Geneva, on the raging Fox River. They made the boat river-worthy, appointed themselves as Captain and Lieutenant, and thus began the Fox River Navy, at least until dinner time. “Gus” and brother Rich renovated a treasured Chris-Craft speedboat as young adults and enjoyed hitching it to their car and taking it to fun-filled family weekends to race on Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. He built his first sailboat in his garage, and later bought a 16-foot daysailer with a trailer which he drove up to Lake Geneva along with his wife and kids. His first adventures in skiing started, on the flat landscape of Illinois during snowy winters, when he and his high school friends would race down the slight hillside leading to the frozen Fox River. Since then, Gordon never met a mountain he didn’t like or couldn’t ski. And he was able to continue skiing until he was 84.

Shortly after an inspiring family vacation to the Pacific Northwest in 1972, Gordon decided to move his family to Seattle. He had found his nirvana – a paradise for skiing in the winter and sailing the rest of the year, all within an hour’s drive of home.

Upon arriving in Seattle, the first thing Gordon did was to buy a 27-foot sailboat with a slip at Shilshole Marina on Puget Sound. Then he purchased a house for his family. That sailboat was followed by ‘Vision,’ a 35-foot Ericson sloop which he bought new at the Seattle Boat Show and commissioned himself with help from his future son in-law. Many memories and stories live on of his sailing trips on ‘Vision’ with family and friends to the San Juan Islands and Victoria, B.C., as well as many races won and lost on Puget Sound with the Sloop Tavern Yacht Club. His favorite local ski hill, Stevens Pass, was just one of many hills he and his skis graced from Colorado, Utah and the Canadian Rockies to the Austrian Alps. Gordon also enjoyed hiking in the Cascade Mountains with his adult children and their friends. Tales of his Marmot Lake hike are legendary. After retiring, Gordon traveled abroad visiting Africa, Europe, England and Scotland, where, always a student of history, he reconnected with his Clan Chisholm heritage. He invested in a Chisholm kilt and proudly attended the Highland games in British Columbia with the Clan. His two grandsons gave him great happiness, and as they grew, he was very much a part of their lives and their biggest fan, attending many of their baseball games, soccer matches, and musical performances. He shared his love of skiing with them, especially on family trips to Big White, B.C.

If there is a snowy hill and windy sea in heaven, Gordon has found them, with joy in his heart.

Gordon was preceded in death by his wife of 42 years, Dolores, and his only brother, Richard. He is survived by his daughter Diane Bennett Simpson, son in-law Daniel Simpson, grandsons Daniel Bennett and David Simpson, son Stephen C. Bennett, partner Alice Park, sister in-law Doris Bennett, niece Cathie Bennett Warner, nephew Richard Bennett II, DPM, sister in-law Dorothy Podboy and beloved nieces and nephews in the Midwest.