Catherine “Kate“ Cecilia (Healy) Bennett, the daughter of Annie Simon and Barney Philip Healy, was born September 5, 1891, in Olmitz, Kansas. She came with her family to Goodwin, Arizona, in 1895 from New Mexico. The second child in the family, Kate, was given many chores to do around the house such as getting in the wood and packing water into the house.
After her mother became postmistress at Goodwin, Kate's chores increased because she helped her mother in serving meals to travelers and the miners who came after their mail once a week. They usually stayed to eat at the stage stop, located between Prescott and Crown King, Yavapai County, Arizona Territory. There were no schools in the area, so Kate stayed with a family in Prescott to attend school.
On September 7, 1910, Kate married miner Grant Thomas Bennett in Groom Creek. The account of their wedding appeared in the Weekly Journal-Miner, September 14, 1910, and reported: “In commemoration of the union of these two popular people, a social dance will be given on Groom Creek tomorrow evening, at the Miner’s Union Hall, and to which many invitations have been extended to their friends in this city and elsewhere.”
She was a hard-working ranch woman who did all of the chores typical of ranch life and homemaking. During her married life, she made all of the family’s bread and did the laundry by hand. She developed many a blister on her hands scrubbing all the dirty clothes on a washboard, having three sons and a husband all wearing Levi's.
Kate and Grant's children were Irene Catherine McNeil (June 29, 1911), Marvin Evan (December 4, 1912), Eugene Theodore (August 15, 1916), and Ralph Wilbur (March 4, 1922). Her love of children encouraged her to become a foster parent to five children whom she considered part of the family and who kept in contact with her up to her death. Known to all as "Granny Bennett," Kate was everyone's favorite babysitter.
When the Goldwater Dam was scheduled to be built, the Forest Service notified all the ranchers in the Groom Creek area to get rid of their cattle. The Bennetts sold all their livestock and the ranch. They lived variously in Mayer and Big Bug.
Kate was a member of the Moose Lodge and a charter member of the Mayer Civic Improvement Club, responsible for securing equipment for the Mayer School and establishing a scholarship fund for high school seniors.
Kate died on February 27, 1984, at Prescott Samaritan Village in Prescott and was buried at Mountain View Cemetery.
Donor: Sterling "Cody" Bennett
Photo Location: RGC-MS-39, Box B, F- Bennett, Catherine
Updated: 4/30/15, D. Sue Kissel
