Evelyn Benson Nurse Leadership Endowment

Support for Future Nurse Leaders in Memory of an Inspiring and Accomplished Nurse

With equal parts brilliance, compassion and wit, Evelyn Rose Benson dedicated her life to helping others as a public health nurse, educator, author, and mentor. She passed away at the age of 100.

The youngest of four children, Evelyn was born in Plymouth, Pennsylvania. In December 1941, during Evelyn’s first year of college, Pearl Harbor was attacked. Evelyn responded to the nation’s critical nursing shortage by leaving college to enter the Nurses’ Training School at The Jewish Hospital in Philadelphia and enlisting in the United States Cadet Nurse Corps.

After obtaining her R.N. in 1946, Evelyn joined the Visiting Nurse Society of Philadelphia. She sought additional public health training, earning a Certificate in Public Health Nursing and a B.S. in Education from the University of Pennsylvania.

In 1955, she received her Master of Public Health degree from the Harvard School of Public Health. Her nursing practice included school nursing in Philadelphia, rural public health nursing in Ohio, and community gerontological nursing in Chester, Pennsylvania. She later taught at Widener College and Temple University. She was Assistant Dean of the School of Nursing at LaSalle University when she retired in 1994. Evelyn also co-authored the textbook “Community Health and Nursing Practice” and wrote dozens of published articles on public health nursing, international nursing, and nursing history.

In collaboration with her lexicographer husband Morton Benson and a British co-author, she compiled “The BBI Combinatory Dictionary of English,” for which the authors were awarded a Certificate of Special Merit at Buckingham Palace in 1987.

In retirement, she established the Evelyn Benson Leadership Endowment in honor of Pennsylvania nursing students. Her accomplishments and commitment to nursing education will continue to inspire generations of nurses.