Marilyn Bennett grew up in Latrobe, PA and graduated from Latrobe High School just five years after the great Fred Rogers. Marilyn may not have had a show on PBS, but the love and positive influence she had on countless lives speaks for itself.
A woman with an inexhaustible passion for people, she took the all-encompassing commandment of loving one’s neighbor to the extreme. From a career in nursing, to preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ at local jails, to turning her basement into an unofficial spiritual rehabilitation center, her selfless desire to get people back on their feet and right with The Lord will be her lasting legacy.
She has housed drug addicts, ex-convicts, a family she happened to pass by one day on the side of the road making pancakes in the rain, four of her five grandchildren, and anyone else who needed a place to stop and rest their head. She was unbelievably kind and generous, sometimes to a fault. Her faith and grace were unwavering. Her phone rang constantly with people asking for prayer, or just to unload after a long day, and she always made time to hear them and pray with them and offer what wisdom she had. She was a great listener, and incredibly humble. She always said that the secret to having friends is to think more highly of others than you do of yourself. Armed with a curious, sharp, quick-witted mind and a great sense of humor, till the very end, she was a beautiful example of what a life of loving God and loving your neighbor can do for a person. She is survived by her five children and her five grandchildren.