Bennett Miller was one of the first people I connected with after moving to The Village At Rockville (TVAR), a retirement community in Rockville, MD, in March of 2022. We met owing to our mutual enthusiasm for playing chess. Bennet had written a notice on TVAR’s computer portal asking if anyone was interested in forming a chess club. I responded by email as soon as I saw it and Bennett phoned me shortly thereafter. We agreed to meet the following Tuesday morning in TVAR’s well used Game Room.

That was the first of our regular Tuesday morning chess games. Bennett and I had both been playing chess for some years and had reached a level of “advanced intermediate”. The important thing was that we were evenly matched, and our games were almost always intensely close. We were soon joined by another resident, Ann Birk, who had played in her younger days and was now eager to resume. Ann is a retired psychiatrist and wrote a wonderful portal posting for our nascent club, inviting residents to “get their neurons firing” by taking up chess. Ann even offered to teach the basic rules of the game to beginners. We soon had four or five new people joining us in the Game Room for our ongoing Tuesday morning chess club. Another fine player, Everette Larson, joined us shortly after he moved to TVAR. Marcia Mattocks and Betty Hess also became TVAR Chess Club regulars.

Win, lose, or draw, I always enjoyed playing with Bennett. He was a warm human being, interested in getting to know each of us beyond the realm of chess. He invited my spouse Andrea and me to join him and his wife Pat for dinner a number of times. As newcomers to TVAR, Andrea and I welcomed the opportunity to meet another couple. Andrea especially appreciated Bennett’s sense of humor and roaring laugh.

Bennett was very proud of his family and very connected to his two children and four grandchildren. He spoke glowingly of his grandson whom he had taught to play chess at an early age and who later beat his grandfather regularly. He was also a devoted husband, very attentive to Pat when she encountered some of her own health issues.

Bennett was a retired astrophysicist who had been involved in developing three different companies. He attended Columbia University as an undergraduate and went on to earn a Masters and PhD there before going on to teach at Ohio State University, as well as serving as a Deputy Assistant Secretary in the U.S. Department of Energy for ten years.

I was bereft when told by an ICU nurse that Bennett had passed away last Friday morning, October 20. He will be dearly remembered by all who knew him.

John Bayerl, 10/24/2023