Two Retired Episcopal Church Bishops Die
Diocesan Press Service. October 20, 1975 [75370]
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Two retired Episcopal Church bishops died recently. Bishop Granville Gaylord Bennett, the oldest Episcopal bishop according to date of consecration, died in Barrington, R.I., on October 3 at the age of 92, and Bishop William L. Hargrave, first Bishop of Southwest Florida, died suddenly at his home in Cocoa, Fla., on October 15, of a heart attack, at the age of 71.
Bishop Bennett was Bishop of Rhode Island from 1946 until his retirement in 1955, after serving as auxiliar bishop and suffragan bishop of that diocese from 1935 to 1946. He would have observed the 55th anniversary of his consecration in November. After his consecration in 1920, he was Coadjutor and Diocesan Bishop of the Diocese of Duluth (now Minnesota) prior to his episcopacy in Rhode Island.
A native of Deadwood, S.D., Bishop Bennett received his theological training at the former Seabury Divinity School in Fairbault, Minn. He was twice married and had three children.
Bishop Hargrave, who was born at Wilson, N.C., was a suffragan bishop in the Diocese of South Florida from 1961 until his institution as the first bishop of the newly created Diocese of Southwest Florida on January 24, 1970. He retired August 31 of this year.
He was a graduate of Atlanta Law School, Virginia Theological Seminary, and the University of the South, Sewanee, Tenn. He is survived by his wife, the former Minnie Frances Whittington, and their four children.