Lyman Benton

Lyman W. Benton, 81, of 104 W. 17th Ave., Milan, died on Sunday, May
17, 1998, at Trinity Medical Center, West Campus, Rock Island.

Services will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday at Wendt Funeral Home,
Moline. No visitation is planned.

Lyman W. Benton was born on Dec. 29, 1916, to Sydney and Neva Weigle
Benton in Stockton, Ill. He married Beatrice Lawler Smith on July 26,
1975, in Davenport.

He was employed as a supervisor in the Rock Island Arsenal machine
shop for 29 years, retiring in 1973.

Lyman W. Benton began as a machinist apprentice at Cedar Rapids
Engineering for five years.  Lyman became a machinist starting in
August 1940.  In 1945 he went to Los Alamos and worked six months on
the atomic bomb, and went from there to Swan Engineering as a
toolmaker.  He was there for 1 and 1/2 years and then went to work for
John Deere Harvester for a year as a toolmaker. After John Deere laid
him off, he went to the arsenal for six months, and then John Deere
asked him to return. He worked there for another six months. Then he
was laid off again, so he went back to the Arsenal Toolroom and stayed
there the rest of the time. In 1950 he was put in charge of the
toolroom small-arms-making machine. He made Sun metalic belt links
for a .30-caliber and .50-caliber rifle.  He worked as a foreman with
nine people under him, including Dale Hoffman during the Korean and
Vietnam wars. He then went to Shop L for 15 years as a general foreman
before retiring in 1973.

Lyman was a member of Doric Masonic Lodge 319 of Moline for 38 years.

Survivors include his wife, Beatrice Benton, Milan; daughters, Sandra
Mahoney, Dublin, Ohio, and Shay Moore, Paw Paw, Mich.; a son, Lyman
Benton II, Hopkinsville, Ky.; a brother Dean Benton; sisters, Frances
Alwin and Mary Jane Toreen; 10 grandchildren, and three
great-grandchildren.

He was preceded by his mother, Neva Benton, and his father, Sydney
Benton.

Rock Island Argus
May 19, 1998