Michael Ignatius Bennett ( "Mac") was born June 21, 1872 in Wheaton, Kansas. Elizabeth Farrell ( “Libby”) was born Sept. 17, 1879 in Marshall County Kansas. The couple married on Nov. 23, 1897 in St. Bernard’s Church in Wamego; Mac was 25, and Libby 18.
The young couple settled in Leavenworth, Kansas a few years after their marriage. Mac farmed and worked part time as a guard at both Kansas State Leavenworth Federal Prisons.
Mac learned the masonry trade by watching the prisoners laying brick as he guarded them. He applied his masonry skills to build the school in Wheaton and the church in Blaine. The couple headed to Alberta Canada around 1910 to homestead near Peace River.
Mac and Libby raised 11 children including identical male twins (Adrian and Harold). The six oldest children (Francis, John, Vivian, Lewis, PJ, Elizabeth) were born in Kansas, while the five youngest (Patricia, Adrian, Harold, Tibercine and Leo) were born in Alberta, Canada.
If you have additional history, anecdotes and/or photos to share about Mac, Libby, and their 11 children please email them to bennettscholarship@gmail.com.
Michael Bennett strode down the main street of Atchison, Kansas with tall, lanky Hank Weber trying to keep step beside him. Hank’s six foot height dwindled beside Mac’s four inches more. Mac was doing most of the talking. His curly brown hair, laughing blue eyes, and frank face proclaimed him Irish to the core, while Hank’s blond locks, eyes of crystal blue, and lisp showed him to be Norwegian. Friendly rivals, these two competed in everything they did. Mac was on the mettlesome and hot-headed side.
“Why shouldn’t I enter the match?” Mac was saying. “I used to be pretty handy with my fists before I left. Had a little practice in Nevada, too.” He chuckled.
“This guy’s a professional,” Hank countered.
“So what? I’ve had experience.”
“Not the kind to face a pro,” Hank insisted. “You’ll get your fool head knocked off.”
“We’ll see,” Mac said. He looked around him. “This place has grown. Too many people. The streets feel narrow.” They leaned against the rough unpainted timber of Jake’s Barber Shop and stared across [Hannah Street] at the red brick Town Hall.
Martha Smyth, a mother of seven children who knew how to do “big cooking,” heard there was a new soup kitchen in Sacramento and found her way to the site on North C Street to volunteer. Stationed in a battered former Sacramento bar, which would eventually be known as Loaves and Fishes, Martha worked with founder Mary Henson and other volunteers to help feed the homeless.
For Martha, who has now logged 20 years of volunteering with the ministry on North C Street, her work began as an anecdote to “empty nest syndrome.” But shortly after joined a group from her parish, St. Paul in Sacramento, the volunteers at Loaves & Fishes became very dear friends.
“You bond with these people. They’re there for the same reason you are,” she said. “If anyone of them called me, I’d be there in a heartbeat.”
A chef whose personal recipes for chili and vegetable casserole have become popular favorites at the Loaves & Fishes dining room, Martha recalled with amusement in the early years standing on a box to stir beans and stew because the stove was so high, and using culinary tools best described as “primitive.”
Sister M. Leonette Bennett, O.S.F. (Patricia Bennett) died December 23, 2008 at Marian Care Center, Santa Maria, CA. Last of her immediate family and seventh of eleven children of Michael Bennett and Elizabeth Farrell, she was born in Penoka, Canada on March 5, 1912. Sister Leonette is survived by a broad circle of family and friends as well as the members of her religious community.
When Sister Leonette was nine years old, her American citizen parents moved with their children to Sacramento, CA. Living in a family that prayed the rosary every evening developed in the young Patty a warm devotion to the Sacred Heart and the Blessed Mother. Being a member of St. Francis School and Parish also deepened her spirituality. One of the highlights of her later life was a pilgrimage to Fatima, Portugal.