Arthur Douglas Bennett, Jr.

I am writing to tell you about the life of my dear husband Arthur Douglas Bennett Junior. Art was born on August 1, 1935 in Greenwich Hospital in Greenwich Connecticut. He spent his very early years living with his parents in Greenwich. The home was owned by his grandfather, Erskine Bradley. His parents, Arthur Senior and Jenny then moved to a home in Stamford on turn of River Road.

His father worked in the composing room at Condé Nast publishers inn Stamford. Later, Art’s father contracted tuberculosis, and his mother had to go to work at conde nast to support her two sons. He was in a sanitarium in Uncase CT. After one of his lungs was partially removed and penicillin was used to cure TB,he returned home.

His father had been  an avid boater and owned sailboats and motor boats. That was where arts great love of boats and swimming and fishing began. his father was also in a band where he sang and played many instruments and transcribed music for the band.

Art also loved to play the guitar and sing especially in front of his church, the North Stamford 7th  day Adventist church, Which he helped to build, climbing up on ladders , putting up the rafters and whatever else was needed. He was a faithful member of the church, and gave sermons there, including the one on giving thanks for everything, even the lessons of losing someone dear.

Arts very first job was delivering newspapers while he was still a boy.He would stand on the back of the truck while it was moving and jump off with a newspaper, run to the home where he was delivering it ,throw it there and run back to the truck to get another.

In school, he had trouble sitting still, and the teachers threw erasers at him and hit his hands with rulers. School  was probably where his lifelong left foot jiggling began.

When he was a teenager, he worked at the Grade A supermarket, and delivered groceries to the owner who lived in a big house on    Shippan   point in Stamford. As a teenager, he enrolled in Wright Tech, where he learned his trade, master mechanic.

When he was about 19, he enlisted in the navy. He would talk about the tests he had to pass,including swimming many pool laps and going into the pool on a simulated aircraft, being submerged, and having to take off all his clothes and swim to the surface, none of which was difficult for him. His feet were shaped like flippers, and he really swam like a fish.

One time, we were about to get on the 32 foot Bristol sailboat that he owned with his younger brother, Richard. He dropped his glasses in the water, dove right in , and came up with the glasses, minutes later, much to my astonishment. He led many camping, canoeing and fishing trips. His favorite place to canoe was the  Allagash River in northern Maine. He loved the call of loons on the lakes of Maine.

In the navy, he went to school to learn to be an airplane structural mechanic. He was on several aircraft carriers, and was flown to different parts of Europe to work on planes, during the Korean War.His unit was called the Airedale’s.He was flown to Norway, where he felt a strong affinity for the beautiful town of Bodo, with its multi colored houses and mountains. Later a dna test confirmed that among other things, he was part Norwegian.

He married his first wife, Barbara, and after the navy, he got a job at Redman Chevrolet, in Stamford.He worked there for ten years, and he and Barbara had four children, Douglas, Ron, Danny, who passed away from bone cancer when he was only four years old, and Bonnie. Ron lived in Florida, with his beloved wife, Lori, and their two sons, Peter, and Steven. Steven went to heaven nine years ago, and Ron joined him there, two and a half years ago.

Douglas lives in Virginia with his wife, Heather, and Bonnie lives in North Carolina with her husband, Mark Grenier. Douglas has four children and Bonnie has two.Art also had seven  great grandchildren.

While living in Ridgefield ct, he plowed snow from peoples driveways and worked part time climbing 80 foot trees to trim branches.He loved camping and led canoe,fishing trips in many places, and especially the AllagashRiver in northern Maine.

He had a dog, a beagle named Ready for many years. He would tell the story of one time when he was out with Ready on the mountain behind his house and Ready ran off. Art left his jacket on the mountain, hoping the smell would attract his dog.The next day when he went back there was his dog, happy to see him.

Later Art married his second wife,Joanne, with whom he had his daughter ,Amy who lives in Bethel, with her husband, Vinny Comunale. She has two daughters, a son and several grandchildren .

After Redman Chevrolet, Art joined Clairol, the haircare company, working in their electric truck department for thirty four years, maintaining forklift trucks and teaching people how to drive them, until he retired and worked part time in their shoe department,  giving out steel tipped shoes for ten years.

We met in 1995 and  we were married in 2000.

Art moved into my house in Port ChesterNY and we lived there until the 9/11 attacks made us want to move. We moved to a house in Trumbull Ct. The house had a large property on a big hill. There was lots of wildlife, deer and big flocks of wild turkeys, but not very  many people.

I told him I wanted to move to a neighborhood,so we moved to our home in Norwalk, where we spent many happy years.

Art loved antique cars. He was a member of an antique car club. His last antique car was a 1937 Chevy, plum color. He put in a bigger  engine, and made other modifications. We loved riding around in that car,waving back and tooting the horn at people who waved at us.

He  loved helping other people.

He souped up our snow blower and cleared as many neighbors driveways as he could manage.He also loved gardening which he learned from his grandpa Root who was a farmer in northern Connecticut.

Art was a funny, kind, spiritual man whose love of God was strong.

He was beautiful, inside and out. His handsome face was lit up with the inner glow of his kind, good soul. I miss him terribly and always will and I feel blessed to have had him in my life for almost thirty wonderful years.