She was a valiant woman who dared to achieve during an era when most women had little chance to succeed. Unless you’re a true local history aficionado, her name probably won’t sound familiar.
This unsung hero was Ida May Bennett.
One of four girls born to David and Maria Bennett — immigrants from Illinois to California and who were raised near Shingle Springs in El Dorado County — Ida May and her sisters were well educated for women of their time.
The eldest, Mary H. Bennett, was a leader in promoting women’s issues in San Bernardino in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She taught in the local primary schools; was founder of the associated charities of city; was a leader of the women’s Christian Temperance Union; was active in the Women’s Parliament, which sought women’s suffrage and an expanded role for women in public affairs; helped found the San Bernardino Women’s Club; and led the campaign to replace “Tin Can Alley” with what became known as Meadowbrook Park.
Minnie Bennett, the second born, a graduate of the State Normal school in 1874, was a popular and respected teacher in San Bernardino primary schools. She died at an early age in 1886 from scarlet fever.
The third born, Marie Antoinette Bennett (or Bennette, as she occasionally spelled her last name in recognition of her French ancestry) was the first California-born woman to receive a medical diploma. After a few years in Northern California, Alaska and Arizona, she settled in San Bernardino where she practiced medicine and operated a maternity hospital.
According to Larry Sheffield’s article “A Profile of the Life and Death of Ida May Bennett,” in a San Bernardino Historical and Pioneer Society publication in 1990, the youngest of the quartet, Ida May (1862-1893) lived her life helping others … only to have her life tragically end as a result of those efforts.
Ida May spent her childhood and early youth in El Dorado County where she received a grammar school education. At age 15, she enrolled at the State Normal School in San Jose in 1877. Upon graduation three years later, Ida May followed her sisters’ footsteps as a teacher in San Bernardino.
Her first assignment was at Central School in 1880, where she taught first grade for two years. Over the next seven years, Ida May taught first grade at Warm Springs School, Arlington School, City Creek School, Riley School and again at City Creek School.
While beginning her time as a teacher, Ida May helped form the San Bernardino Library Association in 1881. John Isaacs was elected president, Ida May, vice president, Henry Goodcell Jr. as secretary and Lewis Jacobs as treasurer. As vice president of the association, Ida May became one of the first women in San Bernardino to share a public leadership role with men.
Ida May was also well known in San Bernardino for her church work. She started a Sunday school class at the First Presbyterian Church and, with her sister, Mary, organized a Presbyterian endeavor that sought to promote community usefulness and Christian piety among its members.
In 1890, Ida May applied to and was accepted by the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church for a mission to Siam, in Thailand. In August of that year, she left San Bernardino for San Francisco and soon changed her mind about being involved with a foreign mission and instead joined the Salvation Army.
Starting as a cadet, Ida May was eventually promoted to captain and moved on Sept. 28, 1891, to Spokane, Washington. Her duties as captain and officer-in-charge included street preaching, visiting jails, distributing copies of the Salvation Army’s publication and conducting holiness meetings.
It was at a holiness meeting in Spokane, in March 1892, that she met Daniel W. Hoskins. Hoskins was in his early 40s in the late 1880s when he arrived in Spokane with his wife and three children. Although he had served as a deputy sheriff in Arkansas and had an overall good reputation as a worker, Hoskins was also known to be an alcoholic who neglected his wife and children.
In 1890, Hoskins’ wife and their newborn child died shortly after delivery. Depressed and suicidal, he began attending holiness meetings conducted by Ida May. Our unsung hero felt compassion for the man after what he had been going through.
Apparently, he misread her signals and made a proposal of marriage to Ida May. She denied his proposal was murdered on May 5, 1893.
The San Francisco Call reported on May 7, 1893:
“A life of good works
She Was Highly Educated and Her Beauty and Fascinating Manners Led to Her Death. Yesterday morning’s dispatches announcing that Captain Ida May Bennett of the Salvation Army had been murdered by Daniel W. Hoskins at Spokane, Wash., horrified her many friends of this city.
They can scarely realize that the poor girl now lies dead with two bullet-holes through her heart.
Seldom has there been so sad an occurrence in the ranks of the Salvationists. They could talk of nothing else yesterday and for many reasons.
The young woman undoubtedly deserved to be called beautiful. Furthermore she was talented above the ordinary, and supplemented a naturally sweet disposition with winning, sunny manners that pleased every one she met.”
On Sunday, May 14, the San Bernardino Opera house overflowed with Ida May Bennett’s family, friends and others paying their respects during a memorial service presented by the Salvation Army Corp, where she’d dedicated her life.
You can learn more about the history of our area by attending Inland Empire History Day at the Santa Fe on Saturday, April 13, at San Bernardino’s Santa Fe Depot.
Contact Nick Cataldo at Yankeenut15@gmail.com and read more of his local history articles at Facebook.com/BackRoadsPress.
