Theodora Bennett

Theodora Mitchell Bennett, known to her friends as Theo, was born in Los Angeles on May 2, 1941, daughter of Broadus Mitchell, a historian, civil rights campaigner and economics professor, and his wife Louise Pearson Mitchell, a social science professor.  Theo attended New York City public schools, graduating from the High School of Commerce in 1958.  She received her bachelor's degree from Mount Holyoke College in 1962, followed by graduate work at the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations, where she met James Metcalf Dyer, whom she married in 1964.   The Dyers moved to Croton-on-Hudson, NY in 1967 where their three children, born in 1968, 1972, and 1974, attended Croton Community Nursery School and the Croton public school system. Their interracial marriage and family, unusual at the time, attracted the interest of journalists from as far away as Germany.   During the 1980's Theo worked for the trademark research firm Thompson and Thompson, then founded the Croton Housing Network, which under her leadership built affordable housing in Croton, including houses on Bank Street and the Mount Airy Woods development designed by Croton Architect Carl Stein.  In 1989, after an amicable divorce from Mr. Dyer, she married IBM physicist Charles H. Bennett and they continued to live in Croton.  During the 1990's, she served as the first director of the Enhanced Section 8 Outreach Program ("ESOP") in Yonkers, an office tasked by a class action settlement with helping recipients of Section 8 housing subsidies gain fair access to the housing market, overcoming previous patterns of discrimination.  In 2004, while her husband continued to work weekdays at IBM, she retired from ESOP and began spending more time in her late parents' summer home in Wendell, Massachusetts.  The Bennetts traveled widely, combining tourism with his scientific work, and made the Wendell home a focus for family gatherings, now including her three married children and seven grandchildren.  In recent years she has been active in the Friends of the Wendell Free Library, providing support for the tiny town's principal cultural institution.  Theo remained involved in Wendell affairs until her death on March 17, 2017 from congestive heart failure.  She is survived by her husband; her former husband; her brother Christopher Mitchell and his wife Pamela Mitchell of Irvington, NY; a son George Sinclair Mitchell Dyer and his wife Martha Dyer of Cambridge, MA; a son Jacob Alexander Dyer and his wife Deslyn Downes Dyer of Croton-on-Hudson, NY; a daughter Louise Dyer Yinug and her husband Falan Yinug of Washington, DC; six granddaughters, and a grandson. Theo's funeral will be held at 2 pm at St. Augustine's Episcopal Church in Croton-on-Hudson, on April 22, with a second memorial gathering planned on the evening of June 3 at the Wendell Free Library.  According to her wishes Theo has been cremated and will be buried near her parents at the South Cemetery in Wendell.

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