BENJAMIN
Betty (Bette) Vaughan Benjamin (August 28, 2021) was a unique, stunning, creative, and adventurous woman. She beat to her own drum, and conforming was not in her wheelhouse. She was the backbone of our amazing father (John S Benjamin) personally and professionally. She camped and explored the Grand Canyon. She loved night caving and bringing home bats for her daughters to observe. She knew how to capture a person’s soul in the photographs she took.
She is preceded in death by her father, Robert Newton Vaughan 1910-1973; her mother, Bessie Bouldin Montgomery Vaughan 1915-2003; her husband of 45 years, John Stoughton Benjamin 1941-2010.
She was born December 4, 1942 in Roanoke, VA and grew up in Lewisburg, WV. She attended Greenbrier College for Women in Lewisburg, WV and West Virginia University.
She met her husband, John S Benjamin, when he attended Greenbrier Military School in Lewisburg. They married in June, 1965 in Lewisburg. Their summer long honeymoon was spent performing and working on the Showboat Rhododendron.
Betty and John spent some time in the East Village, Manhattan, NYC. While there, they decided to start the Greenbrier Repertoire Theatre in Lewisburg (Caldwell). Performances were at “The Tent” and flourished for several summers. From New York, they moved to Huntington, WV in the late 1960s. In the 1970s, they were in Beckley, WV with Theater WV’s outdoor dramas “The Hatfields and McCoys” and “Honey in the Rock” at Grandview State Park, where Betty served as the headshot and show photographer.
Betty had a successful dance studio at Signal Mountain, TN, while John was there at the Little Theater and Chattanooga Performing Arts Center in the early 1980s.
In 1986, they made the move to Kentucky, where they lived in Elizabethtown and last in Shelbyville, KY. Throughout all of their travels, Betty continued her headshot photography with her gift of capturing the true essence of the performers that she shot.
She leaves two daughters, Arwyn Bouldin Benjamin of White Sulphur Springs, WV, Elizabeth (Beth) Stoughton Benjamin Doran (Gabe); and two beloved grandsons, Lexington Benjamin Doran, born 2009, and Maximus Stoughton Doran, born 2011 of Brooklyn, NY; brother, Robert (Bob) Montgomery Vaughan (Becky) of Roanoke, VA; sister, Nancy Vaughan Buchanan (Buck) of Orlando, FL; nephews, Jason Dolan (Susan) of Sanford, FL, Robert Foster Vaughan of Richmond, VA, Mark Montgomery Vaughan (Kara) of Roanoke, VA, and Rick and Stote Clemons of Greenville, NC.
Please join us at 394 Echols Lane, Lewisburg, WV on Sunday, October 10 from 2-4 p.m. to mingle with the family to share memories and stories.
In lieu of flowers, please donate to Alzheimer’s Association via “Betty Benjamin’s Tribute Page”.
Information submitted by Cremation Society of Kentucky of Louisville, KY.
This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.