I want to publicly express my thanks to Donald Benge for his support of my doctoral dissertation. I started working on it in December 2005 but I purposely waited until September 2006 to contact him, as I'd heard from many people that he didn't especially enjoy answering endless questions about his father.
In our first conversation he perked up immediately, as it was clear to him that I'd been doing my homework. I had specific, in-depth questions, instead of the "tell me about your dad" line of questioning.
We spoke and emailed regularly from September to January, when I flew out to Burbank for a face-to-face meeting; he even picked me up at the airport, which, even though it's close by, was darn nice. He had dug out documents and photos which he gave me, with the stipulation that I return the photos after they were scanned. I did, of course, and my understanding is that the cousin has them, which is proper. I have the scans of everything I need. However, Donald allowed me to keep sheet music, documents and other things, as he had no use for them and was trying to downsize in preparation for a future move. Those who were at my lecture/recital in February saw many of these items first-hand, and my Power Point presentation showed many of them, too.
Donald could not have been more supportive; he was even calling old friends such as Irving Bush the week before he died, asking them questions related to my project. Donald last emailed me on the Wedneday before he died (a Friday morning). I added a picture of Donald, taken in January during my visit, along a couple of paragraphs to the front of my site.
Peace be to Donald Benge.
Joe Lill
Chicago, IL
Chicago Benge Resource Site