Covenant News - Memorial Service Monday for Stanley A. Benson

Covenant News

Memorial Service Monday for Stanley A. Benson

CROMWELL, CT (October 30, 2001) - A memorial service will be held Monday for 94-year-old retired Covenant pastor Stanley A. Benson who died Monday evening in Covenant Village of Cromwell.

The service will be at 2 p.m. at Pilgrim Manor on the campus of Covenant Village of Cromwell, according to Covenant Village staff. Covenant pastor LeRoy A. Benson, Stanley Benson's brother, will officiate.

Born June 24, 1907 in Peoria, Illinois, Benson was educated at both North Park Junior College and North Park Theological Seminary before becoming an ordained Covenant minister in 1935. He met his wife, Edla Sandberg, at North Park and they were married September 7, 1932. After leaving seminary in 1932, he served his first pastorate at the Evangelical Covenant Church in Ridgway, Pennsylvania, for nine years before serving from 1941-46 in Yakutat, Alaska, in what was then a mission site for the Department of World Mission of the Evangelical Covenant Church.

Benson then served Covenant churches in Kewanee, Illinois; McPherson, Kansas (now Countryside Covenant); Manistee, Michigan (Faith Covenant); Plainville, Connecticut (Trinity Covenant); and in Park Falls, Wisconsin. He then served at Community Church in Emporium, Pennsylvania, before closing out his full-time ministry service at the Evangelical Covenant Church of Port Allegany, Pennsylvania, from 1983-87.

Besides his pastoral work, Benson contributed to denominational efforts as a board member for the Department of World Mission and for the Middle East and Lower Michigan Conference (now known as the Great Lakes Conference). He also worked as camp director for the Middle East Conference junior camps for three years.

Benson has three sons, Arthur, David and John (a pastor at Community Covenant Church in Springfield, Virginia), and a daughter, Rebecca Cassidy. Benson's wife died in July 1998. A nephew, Dr. Gordon Benson, is an ordained Covenant minister working as a psychological therapist in Massachusetts.

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