Bennie and Pauline Doolen

Bennie Eugene Doolen was born in the same house that his father, William R. Doolen, was born in, which still stands as this is written (1995), near the Doolen Cemetery. Bennie's pre-school years were spent on a farm, near the Sandy Branch Cemetery outside of Kinmundy. Because of the illness of his mother, Ruth Doolen, thought to be tuberculosis, but later undetermined, the Doolen family moved to Colorado, near Monte Vista, when Bennie was about four. Bill, his father, worked there as a foreman on a potato farm. While living there Bennie fell off the well, knocking out some teeth, and getting stung in the face by bees. Bennie recalls coming back with his mother to visit, and seeing his father driving in a few weeks later in his Model T Ford, having decided to return to Kinmundy for good. About this time Bill Doolen took up the trade of barber, serving an apprenticeship with Sam Williams. He also worked a while doing highway work, helping to build Highway 37 where it goes through Alma. Bennie was about six, and because he had the whooping cough during the summer, was not allowed to start school that year, having to wait until the next year. The Doolens now lived in Kinmundy, on Highway 37, where they would remain for many years. Bennie walked to school, a single building housing all 12 grades. Bennie worked mowing yards, buying his own mower, and also worked summers on farms baling hay and doing orchard work, as well as working at Krogers in Salem his junior and senior years. He played ball in the city park, and played baseball, basketball, and track in school.

Right after his high school graduation in 1941, on the same night, Bennie caught a train to Buffelo, New York, and started working at Curtis Wright Aircraft Company. On his first trip home he bought a new 1941 Ford, then drove back to Buffelo. After December 7, 1941, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, he tried to enlist in the Navy, but was denied due to having one too few teeth. He saw a dentist in Farina, had a tooth replaced, and then was allowed to enlist on October 8, 1942.

Pauline Purcell was born 12 April 1923 in Alma, Illinois. She lived on a farm near Alma with her parents Dwight and Carie, and her two brothers and four sisters her entire childhood.

After high school Pauline went to Chicago to work, and Bennie was stationed at Navy Pier for training. Even though they lived only five miles apart growing up, they had never met. Bennie recalls that when he worked in the orchards, the wagon would take them right by the Purcell house, and the clothes lines were always filled with bras and panties from all the girls that lived there, and all the boys on the wagon would get excited. At that time though, he didn't know anyone who lived there. In Chicago, Pauline was living with friends that also knew Bennie, and one Sunday invited him over for supper, and before long Bennie and Pauline were seeing each other regularly. After eight months in Chicago, Bennie was transferred to Seattle for his regular duty as an Aircraft Metalsmith. After writing regularly, Bennie and Pauline were married 29 August 1943, in the Purcell home, while Bennie was home on leave.

Bennie and Pauline returned to Seattle, where they lived in an apartment, then in Navy housing. After Pauline became pregnant, she returned home to Alma when about eight months along, where she had her first child, Stephen Carl, on 8 June 1945, at the Salem Hospital. About two months later she and the baby took the train from Salem to Seattle. Bennie was transferred to a new job in the recreation unit for the last year or so of duty. This job came about through knowing an officer who had been a coach in his high school conference. After being discharged from the Navy on 11 December 1945, Bennie and Pauline stayed in Seattle for a while because Bennie had been promised a job working for an office supply business. Pauline had met the owner of this business through her job with the Army Corps of Engineers. However, the job was delayed, and both were homesick, so they moved back home.

Bennie worked for awhile in his dad's grocery store in Kinmundy. He also learned telegraphy, with the intention of working for the railroad, but never did. He soon took a job with Du Quoin Packing Company, selling Kraft Cheese. On 24 July, 1947, Teresa Jean (Terri), their second child was born in Du Quoin, Illinois. When Du Quoin Packing stopped carrying Kraft cheeses, Bennie was transferred to work as manager of the Salem Ice Plant. During this time the Doolens lived in a two story brown house in Alma, where Steve started first grade. On 14 June, 1952 the third Doolen child was born, William Dwight (Bill), named for both his grandfathers. About a year and a half later the family moved to Carmi, where Bennie had taken a job as an insurance agent for Prudential Insurance Company. The ice plant was planning to close, and Bennie's experience in sales brought him into frequent contact with sales people. He was on this job only about one year, but had a bad manager, who later went to jail, and so decided to take a job with Haliburton Oil Company, as driver and operator of a pump truck. This meant a move to Mt. Carmel, Illinois for the family. This was hard work connecting pipe from the truck to wells, with bad hours, but Bennie states it was an enjoyable job creating close friendships as well. After a couple of years of this work, he decided to get back into insurance sales, and through his friend Darrel Randolph, started with Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. So in 1957 the family moved again, this time to Bridgeport, Illinois. After about two and a half years of being top agent in the territory, Bennie took a promotion and was now working out of Vincennes, Indiana, where the family moved in early 1960. Sometime after this Bennie left Metropolitan and became the Allstate agent in Vincennes, a job he later said he probably should have kept. In about 1962 the Doolens moved from their rented two story brick house on Wabash Ave., next to Riley Elementary School, and had a split level home built just off of Wheatland Road, at 314 Plumtree Drive, the first new home the family had lived in, and the first they had owned. In the summer of 1963 Bennie again changed jobs, this time to take advantage of what seemed a great opportunity. Interstate Finance Company had decided to start selling insurance in their offices, and Bennie would be in on the ground floor as one of their executive sales people. It went well for a while, but unfortunately one of their competitors had political clout, and got a law passed that loan companies could not own insurance companies. About this time the Doolens had moved back to Vincennes from Seymour, Indiana, where they had moved for only a few months due to the job change. Bennie started working for Standard Life Insurance, and in 1969 this required a move to Bloomington, Indiana. In Bloomington he later went with Old Heritage Life, where he stayed until retirement, even though they changed ownership several times, to Central National, then to John Deere Life. These changes meant about a one year stay in Bloomington, Illinois, about 1976, before returning back to Bloomington, Indiana to stay, where Bennie and Pauline lived in several different locations.

In 1973, soon after a trip to Aculpolco, Pauline Doolen was diagnosed as having breast cancer. A mastectomy was done almost immediately, and for a little over five years there was no evidence of any cancer. Then in 1978, test detected the cancer had returned. For the next five years Pauline underwent radiation and chemotherapy treatment, and fought gallantly, but died on 29 August, 1983, on her fortieth wedding anniversary.

On March, 1984 Bennie remarried Lola (Pola) Bailey, a widow of two previous marriages, and an acquaintance from his high school days. Since she lived in Kinmundy, and Bennie's mother Ruth Doolen lived there and was starting to need attention due to advancing age and health problems, Bennie and Pola decided to live at Pola's house at 512 Fremont, Kinmundy. Bennie retired in 1985, after having spent the last several years as Regional Sales Director over the eastern third of the United States. He and Pola spend summers in Kinmundy, and winters in Winter Garden, Florida, where they own a house trailer. They both very active and busy until 2002, when Bennie was diagnosed with multiple myloma, a form of blood cancer. He fought a brave and tough battle, always remaining optimistic, but succumbed on May 28, 2003, at Doctor’s Nursing Home, Salem, IL, surrounded by many of his family.