Early and Family Life
Bennett was born in Hastings, Albert County, New Brunswick, Canada, one of five children born to Andrew Havelock Bennett and Mary Emma Burns. His father was a third cousin of Richard Bedford Bennett, eleventh Prime Minister of Canada.
He left formal school in grade nine, during the First World War, to take a job in a hardware store, but would pursue correspondence courses as an adult to improve his knowledge and job potential. He joined the Air Force but the war ended before he saw active duty. At the age of 18, he and his family moved to Edmonton, Alberta and then to Westlock, Alberta, where Bennett's father operated a hardware store.
In 1927 Bennett married Annie Elizabeth May Richards, known as "May". In 1930 they moved to Victoria and then Kelowna with their two children, Anita and R.J. A third child, William ("Bill") was born in 1932. In Kelowna he joined the local Gyro Club, Masonic Lodge, the Kelowna Club, and was active in the United Church of Canada.
Read more about this topic: W. A. C. Bennett
Famous quotes containing the words family life, early, family and/or life:
“Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That is the only proper basis for family life.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“I could be, I discovered, by turns stern, loving, wise, silly, youthful, aged, racial, universal, indulgent, strict, with a remarkably easy and often cunning detachment ... various ways that an adult, spurred by guilt, by annoyance, by condescension, by loneliness, deals with the prerogatives of power and love.”
—Gerald Early (20th century)
“No wealth can buy the requisite leisure, freedom, and independence which are the capital in this profession. It comes only by the grace of God. It requires a direct dispensation from Heaven to become a walker. You must be born into the family of the Walkers. Ambulator nascitur, non fit.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The work of adult life is not easy. As in childhood, each step presents not only new tasks of development but requires a letting go of the techniques that worked before. With each passage some magic must be given up, some cherished illusion of safety and comfortably familiar sense of self must be cast off, to allow for the greater expansion of our distinctiveness.”
—Gail Sheehy (20th century)