Constance Tasker & George Benning, 1929 marriage license

Eileen Constance "Connie" (Tasker) Benning's father was William Tasker (1879 - 1933) and her mother was Mary Ann (Jones) Tasker (1882 - 1956). She had siblings Willie Tasker (1906 - 1932) and Ethel Allen (born 1909). My great-grandmother, or "GG" as I called her, was a strong proper Welsh woman. She outlived each of her 3 husbands and just could not take another spouse dying on her. She worked hard in her later years, moving to Seward Alaska as a nurse (she was in Seward during the great quake on March 27, 1964 and her family didn't know if she had survived for 3 days) and then returned to California's Bay Area, working at a hospital in Redwood City. GG was a proper Welsh woman until the day she died. From her granddaughter Kathy: Grandma was married 3 times - her first husband was our biological grandfather - and between 1946 and 1961, each of her 3 husbands died. Later in life, she told me that she had so much heartbreak during that time that she didn't want to marry again and have another husband die. But as she got older, she was lonely and wished that she had married again. Grandma was an active person and always up for an adventure. In her 50s, she moved to Seward Alaska (on her own, knowing no one) and was there for the big Alaska quake. She was working at Seward Hospital and had a funny story about the quake: When it begin, she stood in the doorway of a patient's room - an elderly man. After they both survived the quake, the elderly patient told everyone who would listen that she had "saved his life by holding up the room." After Seward, she moved to Valdez (also devastated by the quake) for a year. Grandma returned to the San Francisco Bay Area (where we were living) and worked at Sequoia Hospital. After she retired from Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City, California, she went to work as a companion for an elderly woman in Arizona. The woman was very wealthy, so they split the year between her home in Scottsdale and her other home in Michigan. But the work was physically difficult, so Grandma retired and returned to the Bay Area where she bought a small mobile home in Aptos, near Santa Cruz California. It had been a life-long dream of hers to live in Australia, but that dream was never realized. While she lived in Aptos, however, she became an active member of AA, a daily walker, a devoted yoga practitioner, and took lessons in the Welsh language. Even in her 70s, she couldn't sit still!

George Lawrence Benning was born to William Joseph Benning (1852 - 1930) and Imogene N. (Millard) Benning (1854 - 1916) in Boone, Iowa. He had 9 siblings: Nelson, Henry, Lois, Cora, Walter Joseph, Grace, Arthur, Mabel and Lloyd. He was the youngest. George was married twice, first to Mildred Wilson, and his second marriage to Eileen Constance (Tasker) Benning had Marian Joyce (Benning) Kroetch. He also had a daughter, Lois (Benning) Ewen, from his first marriage to Mildred (Wilson) Benning. His second family lived first in Seattle, then Portland, then in Bremerton Washington, a small port town which grew during WW2. He owned the Chevrolet car dealership in Bremerton. Micky Reed, the owner of the Reed Chevrolet dealership in Bremerton Washington, was on a local river fishing trip and drowned. Micky's widow, Meeka (who I, his granddaughter knew, since she and my grandmother were friends until they died), sold the dealership to George. He called it Reed-Benning dealership as an homage to Micky. Chevrolet didn't like the fact that a woman (oh lordy, a WOMAN!) sold the dealership on her own so they made new rules. The upshot? When George, my grandfather, died, my grandmother couldn't sell the dealership! He was very active in the business, social and political components of the community. I know that he was a Freemason and a Shriner, and that he had some strong relationships with State politicians. (Note from his granddaughter: George was good friends with Warren Magnuson, first a US Representative and then a US Senator. Evidently, Magnuson used to spend summers at my grandparent's house - I saw a letter of condolence from him to my grandmother when George died, expressing how much he would miss George and referencing the wonderful summers he spent at their house. Also in their social circle? Names that you would recognize today: the Gates' - yes, that Bill Gates family - the Nordstroms , and more. The Seattle/Bremerton community was small then.) George also was instrumental in establishing the Elks Lodge in Bremerton, and was involved with the creation of the Washington Athletic Club in downtown Seattle. George was also a founding member of the Isaac Evans American Legion Post in Seward, Alaska in 1919. One cool story about George: He had a bit of real estate in Bremerton and rented these homes to his employees. Upon George's death his will stipulated that the deeds to the homes get passed along to the employees. Also, the story my Mom (George’s daugher) told me about the homes - the people weren't employees but simply people who lived in Bremerton at the time. Since George was a Mason, he was also involved in charitable activities. Mom said that no one (including family) knew that he had bought (I heard 3) houses for people who had problems paying rent and were going to be evicted. (This was probably around the end of the Depression.) He didn't charge the tenants rent and when he died he left the homes to the tenants. However, my sister (who says she has a copy of George's will), notes that there is no record of any homes being deeded.