Ethel M. passed from this life Monday, November 4, 2002, in the Jefferson County Hospital at the age of eighty-nine. She was born June 14, 1913, in Addington, Oklahoma to Joseph and Melsenia Hildebrand Fulton. Ethel lived in Jefferson County all her life, graduating from Claypool High School in 1934. She and Obed Bennett were united in marriage on January 15, 1936, in Waurika, Oklahoma. Ethel worked for the Claypool and Waurika schools systems, doing substitute teaching. Later, she worked in a department store as a sales clerk for twenty years. She did volunteer work, putting in five thousand hours at the Jefferson County Hospital as a charter member of the Pink Ladies.

Ethel attended the Claypool church for twenty years where she taught Sunday school classes. After the Claypool school system closed she began attending the First Baptist Church in Waurika and was baptized. She was very active in church work, singing in the choir and teaching classes, devotions and Vacation Bible School. Mrs. Bennett was an active member of the Claypool Extension Club for more than sixty years and was a member of the Delphian Club in Waurika and the Business and Professional Women's Club.

Survivors include: her husband, Bennett, of the home in Waurika, OK; two daughters - Phyllis Jo and Eddie Merritt of Lawton, OK, and Ginger Wilson of Chickasha, OK; and three grandchildren - Melea Wilson of Norman, OK, Joe Don and Valerie Bandy of Sugar Hill, GA, and Nathan and Laci Merritt of Sterling, OK.

She is preceded in death by her parents, Joseph and Melsenia Fulton, six brothers and two sisters.

Funeral services for Mrs. Bennett were at 11:00 AM, Wednesday, November 6, 2002, in the Waurika First Baptist Church with Audie Durrough and Tommy Billings officiating. Burial was in the Waurika Cemetery under the direction of Dudley Funeral Home of Waurika. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Pink Ladies of Waurika.