Pearl Benney

Visitation for Pearl Marie Benney nee Klenzendorf of Bloomingdale, IL, formerly of Venice, Fl will be held Tuesday, June 27, 2023 10:00a.m. until time of service 12noon at the Countryside Funeral Home 333 S. Roselle Rd. (1/2 mile south of Irving Park Rd.) Roselle.Graveside Services Friday, June 30, 2023 11:00a.m. at St. Peter United Church of Christ Cemetery Knauertown, Pennsylvania.

Pearl is the beloved wife of the late John W.; loving mother of Philip (Lisa), James (Nancy), Alison, Michael, Mary Kay (Mel Wiebush), Elizabeth Ann and William (Merri) Benney; cherished and proud grandmother, great grandmother and great great grandmother of many; dear sister of Esther (Pep) Harban and the late Johanna, Lorraine and Paul.

Pearl Benney was watching the French Open tennis tournament a couple of weeks ago and noticed a quote on the side of the courts: “Victory belongs to the most tenacious.” She just smiled, but Pearl’s tenacious nature guided her successfully for almost 99 years through the ups and downs of a rapidly changing world. From a tough childhood in Oak Park during the Depression to her independent senior years in Bloomingdale, IL, she was always curious, knew what she wanted, and was generally able to accomplish it.

Her main interests and hobbies - apart from her seven children – included golf, tennis, history, current events, and skyping with family. She was a loving mother, a cutthroat at cards, and appreciated fine clothes, food, and home furnishings – even if her husband could rarely afford them.

But her childhood wasn’t cushy. When Pearl was a toddler, her mother was hospitalized, so Mom and her sisters – Johanna and Lorraine – spent four years at the Kinderheim (children’s home) in Addison, while her brother Paul lived with Great-grandfather Boch (sister Esther was born later, when Mom was 9). Pearl has mostly good memories of the Kinderheim, except that she remembers being held back once in the dining room because she couldn’t stand eating the creamed onions.

Her mother regathered the family in 1931, settling in an apartment at the Warrington Building in Oak Park, next to a movie house. Pearl used to peek in through the cinema’s front door to watch, and discovered Shirley Temple tap dancing, with a marvelous head of curls and a wonderful smile – Mom wanted to be that girl!

And yet she remembers herself more often as a curious, mischievous tomboy, pulling pranks like dropping silverware from their second-story apartment on pedestrians below. And, she said, “one of us had a bloody cut once, so we put some of the blood into a pot on the gas stove to see what would happen.”

At one point, her mother ran a rooming house off Harlem Avenue, where the family were given yummy tortillas by one boarder, and piano lessons for the girls from another. Her sister Johanna got the farthest in the lessons, but her Grandma Boch would also come over and play wonderful music, by ear. Later, her 6th-7th- 8th grade teacher was the school choir leader and taught his students the vocal scales. Pearl enjoyed singing with her class choir for church services and funerals, and said that her appreciation for music stayed with her for the rest of her life.

Mom always had a strong faith. Her spirituality was rooted in her childhood, with her mother teaching her that lying is a sin, and Grandma Boch reading to her from the Bible each day. Mom said that her confirmation was a very spiritual experience – even if her happiest memory from that day was the beautiful blue dress her mother had sewn for her.

While Pearl’s sister Lorry was a bookworm and academic, Mom was considered the stubborn child – a quality she certainly retained right up to just last week. After a stalled start at Proviso High School in Maywood, her mother sent her to St. Paul, Minnesota to get her education under the authority of her father. She became a cheerleader at one point, and she and her friend Marvel would sneak out of class to sample smoking and play hooky. She said she learned about petting in her senior year, but didn’t provide any more intimate details.

When she graduated from high school, she moved back to the Chicago area and shared an apartment with her best friend Milly, both working at the American Can Company.
A couple of years after WW2 ended, she met a dashing Navy reservist, John W. Benney (Jack) at the Aragon Ballroom. They both loved to dance, and Dad swept her off her feet and out to Lancaster County in Pennsylvania.

They were married in Lancaster on 1st February 1947. It was a bit bumpy at first, as both Pearl and Jack had strong personalities. And passions, as it turned out.

Mom was relating a story to Bill just last week about how she and Dad would sit on the couch in his Lancaster living room, and they would start smooching. Jack’s siblings would watch out for the parents to come around and would warn them by making lots of noises on the stairway so that they could jump apart in time.

Married, Dad found a well-paying job in Chicago at Spanjer Bros, and the two didn’t wait too long to start their family. Phil was born in 1950, and five more kids popped out almost every year after that: Jim, Alison, Mike, Mary Kay, and Beth Anne. Her saddest moment came when baby Charlie was born and died in 1960, after only four days; she never quite got over losing him (and is taking his birth certificate with her to the grave). But then Bill came along in 1963 to complete the rowdy family circle.
With family in tow, the couple moved out to the western suburbs, to a three-bedroom house in Addison. She enrolled the kids one by one at St. Paul Lutheran School just down the street from her Kinderheim. Her ageing Grandma Boch lived with the family for a while before her death.
Dad traveled a lot as a partner in a downtown sign company, and none of the children understand exactly how Mom raised us all so well – although we do remember the useful playpen in the living room!

She made some good friends on Alden Drive, and was active at St. Paul, both in the church choir, and at the school. Dad would go golfing on Sunday mornings, but she would dress us all up for church and somehow keep us quiet in the pews. And until the children were old enough to walk to school, she would drive us each morning.

Some of us remember that we were running late to school one morning, and as Mom took a quick turn around a corner, Alison pulled on the door handle and fell out onto the street. Boy, did she scream when Mom applied the mercurochrome.

Mom ran us to scouts meetings, music lessons, and sports activities, and as her children grew, she occasionally found time on a Saturday morning to go golfing or play tennis. She caught a whiff of the women’s lib movement in the 60s, and went back to work – where else but at a jewelry store. She enjoyed the times when she traveled with Dad on his business or Navy trips, although when recently asked what her happiest memories were, she responded “Golfing!”

At one point the couple bought a rustic cottage in Michigan, moved to Elmhurst for a few years, and when Jack retired in 1988, he and Pearl moved to a condo in Venice, Florida.

Mike’s happiest moments with Mom (and Dad) were when he lived in Clearwater and each week he would take his two young boys to see their grandparents in Venice. They would enjoy hamburgers and shakes, and then walk down the jetty to the Gulf, to enjoy the fishermen and the pelicans. On Sunday morning they breakfasted together, spent some time splashing in the swimming pool, and then drove back home.

Jack died suddenly in 1996. After spending a few more years in Clearwater with Mike and his family, she moved up to Chicago in 2006 and in 2007 settled in at the newly opened Bloomingdale Horizon residence. She created the facility’s first library, started a puzzle group and a book club, learned how to use an iPad to Skype, to use Facebook, and also to play solitaire and gambling. Most people at the facility described her as a wonderful, warm person.

Mom would probably want to be remembered as a loving mother, whose main accomplishment was raising a healthy, mostly-happy family. Her children remember her also as a beautiful, courageous woman with a joyous smile and a heck of a lot more intelligence than she liked to let on. She will be sadly missed, not only by her close family, but by a wider network of admirers that can be found on her Facebook page. And in the end, after all her children and families had visited her, she managed to pass away just in time to be able to watch her grandson's wedding in Michigan, from up above. Victory indeed.

In lieu of flowers, donations made to EWTN Catholic News Network at https://www.ewtn.com/ would be appreciated. Information (630) 529-5751.