Bennie Brown
Bennie (Ben) L. Brown, 92, most recently of Gresham, Oregon, passed away at Portland Adventist Medical Center Nov. 25, 2022, after suffering a hemorrhagic stroke eight days prior.
Bennie (Ben) L. Brown, 92, most recently of Gresham, Oregon, passed away at Portland Adventist Medical Center Nov. 25, 2022, after suffering a hemorrhagic stroke eight days prior.
August 10, 1930 – November 25, 2022
Bennie (Ben) L. Brown, 92, most recently of Gresham, Oregon, passed away at Portland Adventist Medical Center Nov. 25, 2022, after suffering a hemorrhagic stroke eight days prior. Clear-headed and full of his iconic humor, he joked with the medical staff early in the process when preparing for a brain scan to determine the extent of his stroke; he expressed hope that they would come back with the good news and confirmation that, indeed, he had a brain. He provided us all with laughter to the end.
As a naive and enthusiastic young man, Ben accepted a position at Samaritan Hospital as one of two CRNA anesthesia providers, not only covering Samaritan Hospital’s anesthesia needs but also moonlighting in Othello, Quincy and Ephrata. Moving to Moses Lake, sight unseen, in the spring of 1963, Ben had presumed that Moses Lake must look much like Spokane, where his sister lived. After discovering that Moses Lake looked nothing like Spokane, Ben planned for this to be a temporary home for a couple of years, thinking the family would soon move on to another geography. As it turned out, Ben and his wife, Elaine invested deeply in their work and church communities, all while producing a yearly brag-worthy garden and fruit tree bounty. As fate would have it, Moses Lake was his beloved home for over five decades and only after his own declining mobility made it impossible to stay in the family home did he reluctantly agree to leave Moses Lake in the summer of 2016 and relocate to a retirement community to be near to his daughters.
Born Aug. 10, 1930 to Asa and Bessie Brown of El Paso Texas, Ben was a man of many interests and hobbies that included a love and fascination for all animals and birds, genealogy, stamp and coin collections, travel (which was early in his life limited to climbing every mountain peak in the U.S. over 10,000 feet), history, raising homing pigeons, volunteer work with the Seventh-day Adventist church school and church board and, most significantly, his family. Descended from a long line of Americans, Ben was delighted to be able to provide the required genealogical evidence granting him membership into the Sons of the American Revolution (SAR). The proud father of three daughters Tammera MacPhee of Gresham, Oregon, Linda Brown of Portland, Oregon and Daina Haas of Bend, Oregon, Ben is survived by his beautiful wife of 67 years Elaine, his three daughters, 11 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
A public memorial service will be held at the Moses Lake Seventh-day Adventist Church at 4 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 7, 2023. All are welcome to join us in the celebration and remembrance of a much-loved man.
