Bennie Lewis Brown

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Bennie (Ben) L Brown, age 92, most recently of Gresham Oregon, passed away at Portland Adventist Medical Center November 25th , 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 then end. As a naive and enthusiastic young man, Ben accepted a position at Samaritan Hospital as one of two CRNA anesthesia providers covering not only 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 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. Ben was a man of many interests and hobbies that included genealogy, stamp and coin collections, travel, 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, OR, Linda Brown of Portland, OR and Daina Haas of Bend, OR, Ben is survived by his wife of 67 years, Elaine, his three daughters, eleven grandchildren and six great grandchildren. A public memorial service will be held at the Moses Lake Seventh-day Adventist Church at 4pm Saturday, January 7th, 2023. All are welcome to join us in the celebration and remembrance of a much loved man.

Featured in: January/February 2023

BROWN — Bennie Lewis, 92; born Aug. 10, 1930, El Paso, Texas; died Nov. 25, 2022, Portland, Oregon. Surviving: spouse, Elaine (Evanenko) Brown; daughters, Tamera MacPhee, Lina Brown and Daina Haas; 11 grandchildren and 6 great-grandchildren.