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Family, friends remember Sadie Benham; Civic leader was ‘fountain of joy’
FARRELL — From the dusty roads of rural Jim Crow Georgia to the ghetto of Detroit, and then on to Farrell and California, with other stops in between before coming back to the Shenango Valley more than a decade ago, Sadie R. Benham led an active, illustrious life.
She was a community leader, active in both local and national politics; a woman of faith, the daughter of a Southern Baptist minister and a life-long active church-goer. But perhaps most of all, she was a mother.
“A fountain of joy,” is how her daughter Jacqueline Walker remembered her Sunday, as they were finalizing funeral plans after Mrs. Benham was found dead Saturday morning in her Farrell home. She was 78.
“She loved God, she loved life, she lived well and she laughed a lot,” Mrs. Walker said.
Rozlind Wilson also had fond memories of her mother.
“I think of her as the ultimate role model,” Mrs. Wilson said. “She was just so forgiving, understanding and open. I learned a lot from her.”
Mrs. Benham chronicled her life in the self-published 2002 memoir “From Welfare to the White House, I Know Who Holds My Hand (The Sadie Benham Story)”
It details how she dealt with life’s ups and downs through faith in God and by keeping a positive outlook, something Mrs. Wilson said was always true of her mother.
She lived through racism in Georgia and hard times in a Detroit ghetto. She worked at a factory as a student, and in 1947 lost part of her right arm in an accident there.
She first came to the Shenango Valley when her first husband, George Jenkins, left the auto factories of Detroit for the steel mills of Farrell. After they divorced, she moved to California, where she became a player in local school politics, serving on the school board in a predominantly white Santa Ana district.
She operated her own daycare centers and was a champion of child care for poor, working single moms. She was also a foster mother and adopted three children later in life, after she returned to Farrell to be near her three grown daughters: Mrs. Walker, Mrs. Wilson and Gwendolyn Haynes.
She adopted Cherish, 19, Ricky-ayana, 18, both of whom are pursuing their adult lives, and nine-year-old Cachet.
She had served on the Farrell School Board since 2002.
“She did everything she could to make sure our students were well taken care of in our district,” board Vice President Terry Harrison said. “She will be greatly missed. Those will be some hard shoes to fill.”
Fellow board member Ronald Weston echoed Harrison’s sentiments and added: “Mrs. Benham was a fine lady. She was a stickler for education. She was an outstanding lady.”
In addition to being active in school politics both in Farrell and in California, Mrs. Benham was a three-time delegate to the Democratic National Convention. She was received at the Carter White House in the late 1970s, and served as a volunteer when Barack Obama accepted the nomination at the Democratic convention in Denver. Mrs. Benham also took several Shenango Valley children with her for the living history lesson.
Mrs. Benham and Mrs. Wilson were among the locals who went to Washington in January to watch as Barack Obama was inaugurated as the first African-American president.
It’s something Mrs. Benham didn’t mind standing several hours on the National Mall to witness, Mrs. Wilson said.
“Never in my lifetime would I have expected a black president,” Mrs. Benham told The Herald afterward. “Nothing compares to being able to look out and see all those people from every nation and every creed.
“I think it’s really a turning point,” she said.
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Commissioners formally move to raise sewer fees
Hermitage commissioners introduced an ordinance Wednesday to increase sanitary user fees.
Residents tapped into the Hermitage Municipal Authority lines now pay $95 a quarter. That rate will bump up to $105 a quarter on Jan. 1, under the proposed rate hike.
Two more hikes on Jan. 1, 2012, and Jan. 1, 2013, will result in the rates increasing 50 percent from the current fee. -
Water is on at Forrest Brooke
Water service has been restored at Forrest Brooke Manufactured Home Community after well problems left the 165-unit complex dry Tuesday.
A boil and conserve water advisory has been issued by the DEP and will remain in place until tests confirm the water is safe to drink, Forrest Brooke’s manager Pete Havens said.
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Storm damages trees, wires
Thunderstorms ripped through parts of Mercer and neighboring counties Wednesday night, downing trees and wires and keeping rescue workers on their toes.
A Mercer County 911 dispatcher shortly after 8 p.m. said they were busy with calls across the northern part of the county. He said there had been a few reports of trees falling on homes.
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City leaders open to talks
Sharon officials aren’t opposed to sitting down with their counterparts in Farrell to revisit the idea of combining the two struggling cities.
“It never costs a penny to talk and there’s no (idea) that’s not worth looking at,” Sharon councilman Ed Palanski said. “I think it would be foolish to oppose looking at the idea.”
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Murphy’s Law doesn’t faze regional planners
A complicated, two-day public meeting blitz in 32 counties ran headlong into Murphy’s Law in Mercer County on Tuesday.
The group Power of 32 are looking to re-write the regional map and create a grand, 15-year strategic economic plan for the 32 counties in four states that make up the Ohio River basin and greater Pittsburgh area.
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Forrest Brooke copes with water outage
Residents of Forrest Brooke Mobile Home Community in Jefferson and Lackawannock Townships woke up Tuesday morning to find they didn’t have any water.
Managers of the park could not be reached for comment, but residents said they were told they won’t get water service back for at least another month.
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City facing bleak financial reality
LaVon Saternow has been Farrell’s city manager since 1992. Shortly after she took the job, Sharon Steel, the city’s economic engine, officially closed down.
Since, the city has struggled to remain solvent and Mrs. Saternow said it is facing its worst financial crisis in her tenure.
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Near-complete addition to let man come home
Although the weather delayed the start of Penny and Paul Strechansky’s construction project by about three weeks, the end of the sawing, hammering and stapling is in sight.
“It should be done by the middle of next week,” Strechansky said of the 15-by-20 foot addition being built onto the back of his garage in Hermitage, which will be the new home of his grandson, David Johnson.
Johnson was critically injured in a car crash June 19, 2009, on what is now Interstate 376 in Lawrence County. The crash rendered Johnson, who just turned 21, blind and brain damaged. He is unable to care for himself.
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Man prison-bound for role in drug buy shooting
It may never be known for certain who fired the two fatal shots that killed a Sharon teen on Nov. 6 on Wallis Avenue during a botched drug deal, prosecutors have said.
But Christopher Swogger, 24, Sharon, was fingered by at least one other suspect as the one whose bullets killed John B. Hosey III, 18, of 422 Meek St. Swogger was sentenced Monday.
Swogger was sent to prison for 1 1/2 to 3 years for having a firearm without a license, ending his role in the criminal prosecutions of the drug deal turned shooting.
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Farrell, Sharon to revisit merger
Times are tough.
In Farrell Monday night, city council heard a grim financial report from City Manager LaVon Saternow.
“It’s not a pretty picture,” Mrs. Saternow said. “We could conceivably run out of cash by the end of the year. I don’t know how to put it more bluntly.”
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Commissioners formally move to raise sewer fees
