Poems by Andrew Joseph Bennett, 1921-1979: "One of our better unpublished poets." Paperback - 2021

Andy Bennett was born November 26, 1921, and raised at the home his family owned at 236 E. Tioga Street in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Andy was the second child of John Edward Bennett (1866-1953) and Martha L. Dickson (1892-1928), both Philadelphia natives.

After his mother's death in 1928, Andy, John Edward "Jack", and Doris Elizabeth went to live with their paternal aunt Edna Mae Bennett (1888-1962) and her husband Christian Kauffman Wismer (1886-1963) on their farm near Collegeville, Pennsylvania -- about 30 miles northwest of Philadelphia. In 1939 at age 17, in the midst of the Great Depression, Andy joined the Mount Elden Company 3345 of Civilian Conservation Corps and was sent to Flagstaff, Arizona. For this work, enrollees (single male U.S. citizens aged 17 to 23) were paid $30 a month -- $5 of which the worker kept and the other $25 which was sent home to the family. In addition to his day job of building road, trails, and facilities at what would become the Walnut Canyon National Monument and state park, Andy trained as a boxer and won several matches against competitors from a local teacher's college (now Northern Arizona University), earning the nickname "Pretty Boy Bennett" in local Tucson news reports. One report said he received an offer to box professionally in New York City, but that he declined the offer with plans to go to college instead.

At age 18, he is back in Philadelphia working part-time as a messenger boy for the telegraph before enlisting in the Navy on February 11, 1942. He served as aviation machinist's mate 2 in Norfolk, Virginia, during World War II before being honorably discharged on September 16, 1945. Following separation from the Navy, he used the G.I. Bill to enroll in Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, where he is likely older and less affluent than his classmates.

After graduation in 1950, he spent the 1950s and early 1960s as a union organizer, eventually working the IUE-AFL-CIO in Washington, D.C., during the height of the labor movement. It was in Washington, D.C., that he met Margareta Lundeberg, a Swedish native working in the United States to improve her English. After they marry in 1962 and start a family, Andy founded his own consulting firm to help manufacturing towns transition to a more modern economies.

While he grew up in very urban Kensington, Andy chose to raise his family in the suburbs, buying a brand new house in 1965 in the Old Forge subdivision in Fairfax, Virginia. At the time, Fairfax was a booming new suburb connected by a two-lane Braddock Road (the D.C. Metro would not be built until 1969). Fairfax County had just 275,000 residents in 1960. By 1970, it would be 455,000. In the last 2020 census, the county record 1.15 million residents. Andy lived in Fairfax until his death on November 24, 1979, of stomach cancer. He was 57 years old.

The poetry herein was compiled during his lifetime and preserved by his family. The order of the work is unclear as many of the poems are undated and some are even untitled. His work is particularly interesting as spans the major events in the 20th century including living through the Great Depression, the CCC, the Navy during World War II, and labor organizing.

-- Bjorn and Katherine Bennett, December 2021 in honor of Andy's 100th birthday
Copyright 1979 Margareta Bennett