Jean Macmillan Bennion

Jean Macmillan Bennion, a long-time resident of Hingham, Massachusetts and Whitefield, New Hampshire died November 11, 2011 at White Horse Village in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania after a long illness.

Born in Boston in 1929, Jean was the daughter of the late Stuart and Margaret (McCorkle) Macmillan. A 1948 graduate of Hingham High School, she attended the University of Colorado before enrolling at the New England Deaconess Hospital School of Nursing. After obtaining her RN in 1953, she worked at the Memorial Hospital in North Conway, NH.

Instilled at a very early age with a love of the White Mountains, where her parents had met on top of Mount Washington in 1924, Jean was one of the very first females to work in the AMC Hut System assigned to the kitchen at the Pinkham Notch base camp. Her father, an OH, had been president of the Appalachian Mountain Club and she was determined to work in the system even if she couldn’t work in one of the high huts where female employees were not permitted at that time.

Enlisting in the Air Force after her stint at Memorial Hospital, she met her husband Bill in Saudi Arabia where he was a pharmacist in the Air Force. They were married in 1956 in Hingham, where they settled to raise their four children. In 1978, they moved north to Whitefield where they had been summer residents. Jean worked as an operating room nurse at the Littleton Hospital and Bill worked as a pharmacist in Lancaster and Whitefield until he died in 1989. She was also nursing director at the Morrison Nursing Home in Whitefield.

After retiring from nursing, Jean took particular delight in traveling – visiting her children and grandchildren and on three occasions flying to Clan Macmillan gatherings in Scotland. During the summer, she ushered for many years at the Weathervane Theater in Whitefield. In 2008 she moved permanently to Pennsylvania.

Jean is survived by her four children: Stuart of Bennington, NH; Margaret of Broomall, PA; William, Jr. of Lee, NH; and Raymond of Whitefield. She leaves two brothers, OH Andrew of New York, NY and Alexander of Hingham. She was also the sister of the late Dr. Anthony Macmillan of Hingham, also an OH. She is also survived by eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Following a November 15 service in Pennsylvania, a memorial service will be held on Saturday, November 19, at 10 a.m. at St. Matthew’s Church, 9 Jefferson Road, in Whitefield. Burial will be private.

Donations in her memory may be made to the Mount Madison Volunteer Ski Patrol Trust, c/o Alexander Macmillan, 217 Main Street, Hingham 02043 or to the Neighborhood Hospice, 400 E. Marshall Street, West Chester, PA 19380.