Dennis Eugene’s Obituary Dennis E. Bennett, age 63, a resident of East Stroudsburg, PA and Jersey City, NJ passed away unexpectedly Sunday February 3, 2019 at his home in East Stroudsburg, PA. Dennis was born and raised in Aurora, IL. He attended Claim Street Baptist Church where he formed many lasting friendships.
He was a 1973 graduate of East Aurora High School, graduating in the top 10 of his class. After attending Trinity College (Deerfield, IL) and Urban Life Center in Chicago, graduated from Aurora College (now Aurora University) in 1979 where he majored in Finance. He graduated from the University of Chicago Busch School of Business with an MBA in Finance in 1982.
He will be remembered from math classes in high school as being the guy no one wanted in class because the teacher graded on the curve and he threw off the curve. He played trumpet in the high school band and was constantly fighting back and forth for first or second chair. His senior year the band was honored by going on a trip to Switzerland, which Dennis especially loved.
He returned to study under Dr. Francis Schaffer at L’Abri outside Lausanne, Switzerland, and then took a few months to travel around Europe on his own, seeing every city and site he could pack in. Those times were instrumental in forming his love of travel which became such a large part of his work history over the years. Traveling and working in many countries over his career, whether it was a week at a time or spending months in places like Australia, his family was sometimes able to join him and share.
As a teen, he loved history and read about Rome and Greece when his parents weren’t looking, often when he was supposed to be doing chores. He was the family (writ large) genealogist, with thousands of relatives and ancestors in his database. As he and his family drove across parts of the US, he would often suddenly comment that he had ancestors that had lived there, as if everyone knew where their 16th great-grandfather was buried.
His professional life was spent helping financial institutions all over the world evaluate and manage their balance sheet risk and develop policies and procedures to maintain healthy institutions. He started his professional career at First Chicago in international commodities lending and went 0n to spend most of 30 years working for or providing services to all of the Federal Home Loan Banks (now 11) across the US, which he considered a purposeful mission, expanding mortgage opportunities for housing. He had recently specialized in model risk, and started at Morgan Stanley as a Vice President.
He had also started a collegial group on Model Risk validation called the Model Risk Managers International Assn (MRMIA). He married Robin (Churchill) in August 1977 and they resided in Naperville, IL. He married Diane (Winkleman) in Phoenix, AZ on February 15, 1992.
Together they founded Servant’s Heart. For about 15 years they took Bibles, food and medicine to help the people in the Blue Nile region of Sudan (now South Sudan). At one time they even had the school kids at Aurora Christian School, as well as others, helping package supplies such as paper, pencils, even soccer balls and blankets to send to the people of Sudan.
Dennis and Diane had one son, Daniel Luke Bennett, who graduated from Wheaton College in 2018. He enjoyed hiking, discussing history, and traveling internationally with Daniel, sharing in a gentle way his view of the world. He is survived by his wife Diane, his son Daniel (Summer) of Wheaton, IL, sister Doreen (Jeff) Johnson of Aurora, IL, and Dee’s husband Tom Barney of Chattanooga, TN, his former wife Robin Bennett of Naperville, IL, in-laws Gerald and Gretchen Winkleman of St. Louis, MO, brothers-in-law Warren (Rebekah) of Huntington, IN, Mark of Austin, TX, and Austin (Sue) of St. Louis, MO, and many nieces and nephews.
He was preceded in death by his parents Bob and Jessie Bennett of Aurora, IL and his youngest sister Dee Bennett-Barney of Yorkville, IL. Service will be held Saturday February 9th at 11:00 am at the Middle Smithfield Evangelical Presbyterian Church, 5205 Milford Road, East Stroudsburg, PA 18302. He will be laid to rest in East Stroudsburg, PA as he wished.
If you found any mistakes, or you would like to add/remove to this obituary, please contact us by email: info@obituary.memorial. We never ask money for this.
