Houston Chronicle

February 4, 2005

Pearl A. Bennett , one of the first Jeff Davis Hospital nursing grads

At 101, she outlived the other graduate from her class of 1928

 

By LYNWOOD ABRAM
Staff

     Pearl A. Bennett , who 77 years ago constituted half of the first graduating class of the Jefferson Davis Hospital School of Nursing, died Sunday, January 30, 2005 in a Houston nursing home. She was 101.

     Bennett had regularly attended gatherings of Jeff Davis nursing graduates until a few years ago, said her daughter, Rosalee Sisson of Houston. She said her mother outlived the woman who graduated with her in 1928.

     "She always won the prize" for being the oldest attending the reunions, Sisson said.

     The old Jeff Davis Hospital, which still stands at 1101 Elder on Houston's Near North Side, is being transformed into lofts for resident artists.

     Pearl Avent Bennett grew up in the Falls County town of Rosebud, where her father, Dr. Benjamin Avent, was a physician whose office was on the second floor of the general store, Sisson said.

     "(Bennett ) said she had lived from the horse-and-buggy days to the days of the rockets," Sisson said.

     After graduating from high school in Rosebud, Pearl Avent came to Houston in 1920 and stayed with her sister, Lola Johnston, who taught fourth grade at Browning Elementary and later at Peck Elementary in the Houston school district.

     Pearl enrolled in a three-year course in nursing at Jeff Davis, during which she fell in love with her future husband, Hugh M. Bennett , a carpenter and contractor.

     In those days, it was forbidden for student nurses to be married, but the couple got married secretly, Sisson said.

     After her mother graduated, the couple had another wedding so they could have their names listed in the newspaper, Sisson said.

     Pearl Bennett worked as a private nurse and in hospitals. During World War II, she worked at Jeff Davis Hospital at its location on Allen Parkway. She worked at Ben Taub Hospital after it opened in 1963, mainly doing clinical work until she retired in 1965.

     Besides Sisson, Bennett is survived by another daughter, Joanne Warrick of Houston, and a son, Hugh M. Bennett Jr., of San Diego.

     A memorial service will be at 11 a.m. February 11, 2005 in the chapel at Parkway Place, 1321 Park Bayou, Houston, Texas.