Mr. Bennett Fairorth, an Abington resident for 70 years and a beloved former teacher, passed away on July 9 at Rydal Park in Jenkintown. He was 99 years old.

Mr. Fairorth would have turned 100 on September 1, his obituary said.

According to a tribute published by Chestnut Hill Local today, Mr. Fairorth began his career in education as an English teacher at Abington High School. He later taught at Council Rock High School and Penn State Abington, retiring in the mid-1990s. 

An excerpt:

Although Bennett, who also wrote 12 novels and travelogues, retired in the mid-1990s, he continued to receive these laudatory letters from former students. Many of the former students, scattered around the country, would come back to the area to be with their families for Thanksgiving, Christmas or other times of the year. Like clockwork, some would call Bennett and take him out to lunch or dinner at an area restaurant.

A father of three and a World War II veteran, Mr. Fairorth earned a B.A. in journalism and a master’s degree in English literature from Penn State University. He authored 12 novels and travelogues, including “The Aardvark’s Grunt, the Author’s Murmur“, “A Full Life“, and “The Land Where My American Mother Died-Palermo, Sicily: A Novel“. You can read Mr. Fairorth’s 2020 article for Chestnut Hill Local here.

His late wife, Ruth, had run Slom’s Uniform Store in Willow Grove for many years.

Services and interment were private, his obituary said.

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