Henry's Lieutenants

Harry Herbert Bennett

Harry Herbert Bennett 1892-1979 "Bennett was merely following instructions." —Charles E. Sorensen* Harry Bennett has always been a controversial figure. Friends insist his reputation was the result of Henry Ford's demand that Bennett play the role of villain in the Ford-directed super-drama. Bennett had close associates who were gentlemen and close associates who were crooks. Harry Herbert Bennett was born on Wall Street in Ann Arbor, Michigan , on January 17, 1892. His father, Verne C. Bennett, was of IrishEnglish extraction, and his occupation was sign painting. His mother, Imogene Bangs Bennett, was of Scotch-Irish ancestry, a native of Plainwell , Michigan, and a schoolteacher. Harry had a brother, Haze Bennett , four years older than himself. When Harry was two, his father died from injuries occurring in a brawl. Within a few years of her husband's death, Imogene Bennett married Robert Winslow, a professor of engineering at the University of Michigan . Harry was a somewhat unruly child and did not get along too well with his parents, especially his stepfather. Harry sang with the St. Andrews Episcopal Church choir for a time. His parents later transferred to the Church of All Creeds, with a congregation made up of Protestants , Catholics, and Jews. His stepfather died just a few years after his marriage to Harry's mother, and Harry was sent to live for a while with an uncle in Saginaw, Michigan. When he was fifteen, he and his mother moved to Detroit, where he felt quite restricted at home and decided to join the Navy in 1909, at age seventeen. The sailor's life was much to his liking—a life of activity, adventure, comradeship, and a chance to excel in his favorite sport of boxing. It was quite by accident that Bennett left the Navy. He was in New York, planning to reenlist, when by chance he met Henry Ford. In civilian garb, Bennett and a buddy had got into a scuffle at the Customs House in Battery Park when Arthur Brisbane, the noted journalist, *From Charles E. Sorensen , My Forty Years with Ford, (New York: W. W. Norton, 1956), p. 314. 29 Henry's Lieutenants happened by. Brisbane, witnessing the police grappling with Bennett, saw a possible story for himself and obtained permission from the police to interview Bennett. It happened that Brisbane was on his way to an appointment with Henry Ford at the Ford Sales Office; he took Bennett along, and Ford heard Bennett's story. Ford was impressed with Bennett's fearless spirit and told Bennett he could use his talents to help keep order in his new Rouge manufacturing complex. This was in 1916, when Bennett was twenty-four. But young Bennett was not on the Ford payroll immediately. After returning to Detroit, he could not reach Henry Ford but found a job as an artist in the Ford Motion Picture Department through Ernest Liebold , Henry Ford's secretary. Bennett had inherited considerable artistic talent from both his father and his mother, as well as having had formal instruction in art. But he was not satisfied in the art department . Finally, after several months, Henry Ford called and made the offer Bennett had been waiting for. His assignment was to be Ford's private "eyes and ears" at the new and bustling Rouge plant. Evidently, Bennett could not be fired by anyone but Henry Ford himself. Charles Sorensen was production manager at the Rouge, and the two got along remarkably well. Both were intensely loyal to Ford and ready to carry out, without question, any order Ford issued. About this time, shortly after World War I, Bennett married Eileen McClellan of Ann Arbor, the first of his three wives. From this union, two daughters, Billie and Gertrude, were born. But Bennett's extreme loyalty to Henry Ford prevented him from having a normal family life. Eileen divorced him, and in 1928 he married Margaret MacKensie, an attractive college graduate. With Margaret, he planned a quiet family home on the Huron River near Ann Arbor. Henry Ford furnished the money, and Ford and Bennett together constructed a veritable fortress. The life-style was oppressive to Margaret, and after bearing one child, Harriet, Margaret divorced Bennett in 1933, taking Harriet with her. Within a few years, Bennett married Esther Beattie, a vivacious/funloving nurse who worked in the Rouge Administration Building. Apparently , Esther could cope with the obstreperous Bennett. She bore still another daughter, Esther Rae, and she long outlived Bennett. Bennett...