Mr Malcolm Benson's Obituary
Malcolm D. Benson died on January 1, 2015 at the age of 94 of complications with pneumonia in Ontario, CA. He was born in Winchester, Indiana on March 27, 1920.
In World War II he served in the Army in New Guinea in the South Pacific. He earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Music from the University of California, Los Angeles and a Master’s in Organ at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, IL. He was an Assistant Professor of Music at Wheaton College in Illinois where he met the love of his life, Phyllis J. Holzwarth. They were married in 1950. Their son Daniel was born in 1953. They moved to San Bernardino in the mid-1950s where he worked for the local school district. He earned a second Master’s Degree in Library Science form the University of Southern California and served as a public school librarian until the mid 1970’s.
He was the organist at St. Paul’s, Methodist Church, San Bernardino before serving as the Organist and Choir Director at St. John’s Episcopal Church, San Bernardino for 30 years. He was the consummate professional, dedicated to his art, a person of good humor, a member of the American Guild of Organist, and a subscriber to the publication The Dispason, an international journal devoted to the organ and church music, since he was 19.
His sister Eloise Nicholl of Pasadena and his son Daniel survive him. He will be interred at a private ceremony at Riverside Memorial Cemetery.
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