Ann Bennett Mix

Ann Bennett Mix died on Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024. She was born to Eloise and Sydney Bennett on Nov. 14, 1940, in Bakersfield, Calif.  

Ann graduated from Bakersfield High School in 1958. The following years were peripatetic, moving first to San Francisco, Calif., then to Embudo, N.M., where she identified with the emergent Hippie counterculture. After leaving New Mexico, she lived throughout the West eventually landing in Bellingham, Wash., where she returned to college to receive her BA (Interdisciplinary Concentration-Biographical Research and Writing) from Western Washington University in 1990.  

By 1991, Mix had begun research on the circumstances surrounding the death of her father Pvt. Sydney Bennett, 10th Mountain Division during World War II. Sydney Bennett was killed in action in Italy in the Apennine mountains known as the Gothic Line on April 19, 1945. His untimely death left a deep wound in Ann’s family and homelife. During her research she discovered that 183,000 servicemen who died were fathers. Later that year, with a desire to connect with people who shared her story and life experience of being a war orphan, Ann founded the American WWII Orphans Network (AWON), an international organization devoted to sons and daughters who lost fathers to World War II. To foster the organization, she began a longstanding friendship with Senator Robert Dole who had fought in the 10th Mountain Division with Mix’s father and served as an advisor to the organization.  

Important contributions made by Ann during her tenure as founder of AWON include establishing an international community of families of those who lost fathers to WW II, the return of the remains of many servicemen lost abroad, greater recognition of the contributions of African American servicemen during WWII, and advocacy for the building of the World War II Memorial on the National Mall. Through those efforts she was honored with an invitation to visit the White House by George W. Bush. It was her suggestion that ‘stars’ be added to the WWII Memorial to represent the war dead which resulted in The Gold Star Wall of Honor. 

Her work with AWON was featured in “Newsweek,” “Finally, A Time To Grieve” by Maggie Malone on Oct 26, 1998, NPR Radio’s “The Diane Rehm Show,” and “All Things Considered.”   

Ann Bennett Mix is the author of two books: “Touchstones A Guide to Records, Rights and Resources for Families of American World War II Casualties” and “Lost in the Victory: Reflections of American War Orphans” co-authored with Susan Johnson Hadler as a collection of stories from survivors. The book was critically praised by “The New York Times” news service, among others, as “reading that will tug at your heart, your emotions — and perhaps, just perhaps, will change forever the way you look at Memorial Day. It’s not to celebrate but to reflect.” 

Her interest in public service and politics led Mix to be a founding member of the Grant County Tea Party and an active member of the Grant County Republican Party (2002-2018), often as its public spokesperson. She was also a commissioner on the Housing Authority Board of Commissioners for Grant County. Motivated to make a visible change in the former military housing neighborhood where she lived, Ann created a community anti-graffiti coalition resulting in art replacing graffiti. She was a poet, songwriter, animal lover and loved hidden treasures and collectibles. 

As a historian, she took enormous pride in her family history and ancestors, especially her famous cousins Presidents Grover Cleveland and George Bush I and II, William Williams and George Taylor both signors of the Declaration of Independence, inventors Wilbur and Orville Wright, author Ernest Hemmingway, impresario PT Barnum, and abolitionist Elizabeth Mix Cowles. She also qualified as a Daughter of the American Revolution through her ancestor Dr. Samuel Mix. 

She is survived by five children, five grandchildren, three daughters-in-law and one son-in-law.  

The family requests that any contributions go to The National WWII Museum in New Orleans in the name of AWON Founder Ann Bennett Mix. The donation link may be found at https://bit.ly/WWIIDONATE.