Harold L. Benton never wanted to retire from his trucking sales job, or miss a NASCAR race or his Saturday morning golf game at the East Lake County Club or golf anywhere else if it was in easy driving distance from his home in DeKalb's Avondale Estates.
He was looking forward to watching the final race in the NASCAR Sprint series on Sunday and following Tony Stewart in the No. 14 car. And on Wednesday, he was looking forward to celebrating his 62nd wedding anniversary with his wife Irene, an Atlanta-native whom he met in the 1940s at a roller skating rink.
Mr. Benton, 84, died Friday at DeKalb Medical Center after complications from a broken hip that happened about a week earlier. His vision has long been failing and he took a bad fall in his driveway when he was up to fetch the morning newspaper, said his daughter Debbie Williams of Atlanta.
"Daddy loved the paper and he'd read it cover to cover, even if it took him all day to do it with one of those giant magnifying glasses," she said. "He's gone mostly blind but he didn't give up trying to read or do all the things that he loved."
"Daddy wanted to do things his way, and after being in the hospital a week, I guess it was just his time," Mrs. Williams said.
Benton, or "Big Daddy" to his grandchildren and great-grandchildren, like to do things on his own.
The Atlanta native volunteered for the Navy during World War II right after he graduated from Atlanta's Tech High School in 1944 and was stationed in San Diego, Calif., before being assigned to work for the War Department in Washington.
"Daddy wouldn't ever say much about what he did," Mrs. Williams said. "It was Naval Intelligence or such, but on a number of occasions he have morning walks with bigwigs. He got to meet [President] Truman and [President] Eisenhower. He'd tell us about that."
Benton left the Navy in 1948 as a Yeoman Second Class and moved back to Atlanta where he became a Mack Truck salesman and a year later, he married his sweetheart. He took night courses at Georgia State University and earned a business degree in 1959.
They raised two daughters and two sons in the Atlanta area, and for much of that time, Mr. Benton was the owner of his own trucking sales company Atlanta-Brockway Truck Sales. But every night he'd be home by 6 p.m., in time for the family to have dinner together. He later sold his company and went to work for Nalley Motor Trucks, his daughter said.
He volunteered as a coach for youth football and baseball and he was active in the Masons and a member of the Glenwood Hills Lodge No. 703.
About 7 years ago, Mr. Benton became one of the oldest people to receive a kidney transplant at Piedmont Hospital Transplant Center, receiving the organ from Mrs. Williams.
"The reason he qualified for the transplant when he was so old was because he was so active," she said. "I was a perfect match and there was never any doubt that I'd give him a kidney. And just eight weeks later, he was back at work at Nalley. He didn't want to slow down."
Even when his eyes started failing a few years ago, he didn't want to give up work. His wife or one of his grown children would drive him to and from his office every day. But he finally retired in 2008.
In addition to his wife Irene and daughter Mrs. Williams and her husband Chip Williams, he is survived by his son David Benton and his wife Dee Ann Benton of Gainesville, son Terry Benton of Lawrenceville, daughter Suzan Benton of Marietta, as well as a host of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
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