On January 3, 2023, at the age of 92, Eugene A. Bentley, Jr., M.D., FCAP, of Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, passed away surrounded by his daughter. His mother Helen and father Eugene A. Bentley, Sr. were both born on May 14th, 1930. Gene, or Gene as he was more often called, spent his formative years in Delaware County. He enrolled in the Pennsylvania National Guard and was assigned to the 235th Field Artillery Observation Battalion after graduating from Haverford High School in June 1948. He served in the military for the following three years.
He was called up to service in the U.S. Army in the summer of 1950, just after the start of the Korean War, and his attendance at Swarthmore College was halted. He received his ballistic meteorology training at Fort Sill before departing for overseas duty with the 97th Air Defense Artillery Battalion to a location close to Tokyo, Japan. After serving as an assistant operations sergeant and an assistant gunnery commander, he was honorably discharged in May 1952.
After being released from the army, Gene attended Swarthmore College once more. He first met Janet Senft, the love of his life, in his final year at Swarthmore. He was in charge of recruiting new band members, so over the summer, he wrote letters to each incoming student. He recalled meeting her there for the first time, and it was love at first sight when he first encountered her during rehearsals when she was holding her oboe case. In June 1954, after receiving his biology bachelor’s degree, he enrolled at Philadelphia’s Hahnemann University School of Medicine to pursue a career in medicine.
