Ann Bennett Mix

Ann Bennett Mix died on Wednesday October 30, 2024. She was born to Eloise and Sydney
Bennett on November 14, 1940, in Bakersfield, CA.

Ann graduated from Bakersfield High School in 1958. The following years were peripatetic,
moving first to San Francisco, CA then to Embudo, New Mexico, where she identified with the
emergent Hippie counterculture. After leaving New Mexico she lived throughout the West
eventually landing in Bellingham, Washington 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 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 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
collectables.

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, and three daughters in-law and one son in-
law.

The family requests that any contributions go to The National WWII Museum in New Orleans
din the name of AWON Founder Ann Bennett Mix.
https://support.nationalww2museum.org/site/Donation2?8056.donation=form1&df_id=8056

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