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Benjamin Chapman - Year Entered 1959

Benjamin Chapman

 

Benjamin R. Chapman

July 27, 1934 - November 11, 2020

 

The following as it appeared on FB post from Cat Chapman Smith, Ben's youngest daughter:

 

My siblings Richard Armstrong, Carolyn Chapman, Ben Chapman and I lost our sweet dear ol’ Daddy-o or Pops (as we called him), Benjamin R. Chapman, last night (November 11, 2020).  There will be no funeral or memorial service because of Covid; his body will be transported to Texas where he will be buried next to our beloved mom, Lois Chapman, at Gladewater Memorial Park Cemetery near Big Sandy (my little brother Ben’s and my birthplace).  Although he didn’t die of the Covid virus, my sis calls him a “Covid casualty.”  Prior to the March lockdown here in Baltimore, I picked him up every Sunday for dinner with my family, and Carolyn and I visited him regularly at his memory care facility.  But that all changed.  One month after the other, not being able to see his family took a toll on his mental and physical health.

 

A few fun facts about Ben…Ben received his electrical engineering degree from UCLA and was a project manager for designing the computer guidance systems for US government’s ICBM missile project in the early to mid 1950s: received his Masters in Theology and became an ordained minister, installed and was operating engineer of a radio studio in Bricket Wood, England, taught theology, photography and speech at Ambassador College; was the head of data processing for his church and then for a NYC clothing manufacturer; received his MBA from NYU; started a business with Lois, ‘Chapman Computer Services, Inc’, which was a payroll accounting and tax service; was the president of a software company where he set up software systems all over the world; oh, and father to 4 kiddos along the way and married to our loving mother for 56 years.  Dad was an avid ham radio operator, built Heathkit televisions in his spare time, loved his model railroad hobby, was a voracious reader and was a huge fan of action/adventure/sci-fi films (a proud Trekkie!)  Both he and Lois had a green thumb with their fruit orchard, grapes, vegetables and flower gardens, and a shared love for traveling and all our pets.  Lastly, they made beautiful and welcoming homes in Texas, California, New Jersey, Utah and Ohio.

 

What more can we say…There are no words to describe how much we will miss our parents.  They instilled in us hard work, honesty, integrity, kindness, generosity and love, RIP, dad and mom, you guys were the best.



 
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03/05/21 04:54 PM #1    

Bob Gerringer (1967)

I posted this tribute to Ben Chapman on the General Message Forum Nov. 24, 2020.  I was able to locate it on the GMF, and so will post it here on his In Memory page:

 

Bob Roufs #32349 – Thank you for your very fine tribute to Ben Chapman.

Having not attended Big Sandy, about all I knew was that Ben Chapman had married Dick Armstrong’s widow, was a pastor-ranked minister, and was on the faculty in Big Sandy – until 1974 when he was transferred to Pasadena to run DPC, and so he became my boss for a few months.  There, it was my loss that I did not get to know the real Ben Chapman.

I only had four conversations with Ben that I recall:  1) At a department social at his Altadena home shortly after he moved here.  2) The first time he called me into his office I was surprised to be met with the question, "Are you still tithing?" – to which I said "no"; he then asked, "When did you stop tithing?" – and I said, "this morning" (coincidentally, it was a decision I had actually reached only a few hours earlier).  3) Days later I was called back into his office to be assigned a "handler" – Dale Hampton – who would take me to lunch weekly to counsel me back into good-standing in the WCG.  4) About three months later I met with Ben in his office, Feb 27, 1975, and I was "dismissed."  (Connie and I were unofficially told by others that "observers" had seen us attending Dr. Martin's Saturday lectures, although that was not mentioned in my final meeting.)

Obviously, these brief encounters left me with a negative impression of Ben Chapman, and only now, nearly 46 years later, have I been shown how wrong that impression was.  Bob Roufs’ recollections, along with the many, many other accolades which lit up the Big Sandy website have shown what a fine man Ben was, and how much I missed out on from my very short, skewed exposure to him.  My incorrect impression was sadly distorted through the prism of religious conflict and WCG-dogma (a dogma which precipitated irrational and inappropriate personnel decisions), and, in my case, the ensuing course was very uncharacteristic of our quite professional AC Data Processing environment.

In retrospect I would like to think that he was uncomfortable with the course of action he had to take.  Of course, I’ll never know for sure, but I think that is a reasonable supposition given the many wonderful accounts of the very positive, kind, principled, and down-to-earth example Ben Chapman set as a minister and AC faculty member in Texas, and throughout his life.


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