Former Post-Gazette food editor
Sitting beside Marcia Bennett was a highlight of being in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette newsroom. She had sparkle and elegance, she articulated with precision and made great use of a fine wit.
At lunchtime, she would slip off her heels, tie on her sneakers and announce with formal playfulness, “I am going to go for my constitutional.”
A native of Clairton, Ms. Bennett was a journalist for decades and continued freelancing after retiring as the Post-Gazette’s food editor in 1991. Having been diagnosed a decade ago with Alzheimer’s disease, she died Wednesday at age 85 in Calvary Hospital Hospice in Bronx, N.Y.
She had the gift of expressions befitting a comedian or impersonator, but her composure was what suited her for deadlines and small-town politics. Before joining the Post-Gazette in 1980, she worked at newspapers throughout the South Hills, from Clairton to Homestead to Dormont, editing 12 issues each week. The papers had been part of the Pittsburgh Suburban Community Newspaper chain before being bought by Spenley Newspapers Inc.
“She covered everything from lost dogs to school boards,” said her son Bruce Bennett of Scarsdale, N.Y. He said she loved writing about food and traveling to food events, such as the Pillsbury’s Cook-off.
“But we were the guinea pigs for some of the recipes,” he said, recalling the rump roast buried in sand that had to be hosed off.
Ms. Bennett wrote about spud shortages, pie crusts, the versatility of chicken, and veggie burgers before veggie burgers were a thing. When the nation’s food writers and editors convened in Baltimore one year, the Baltimore Sun’s Rob Kasper covered an event and quoted her reaction to a spicy crab dish: “Marcia Bennett, food editor of The Pittsburgh PostGazette, was heard to say that the spices were hot enough to melt her wedding ring. She kept eating despite the heat.”
A 1952 graduate of Chatham University who became the first female president of the Pittsburgh Press Club, she started her career in Homestead at the Daily Messenger.
“The Messenger hired me as a reporter when I was 17,” said Kevin Barkes, who reported to Ms. Bennett. “You had this idea of newspaper men as crusty old guys, and Marcia was the most sophisticated woman I had ever encountered, a cross between Mary Tyler Moore and Dorothy Parker. It was amazing to see her hold her own with some angry mayor or councilman — a warm smile and then a surgical, Parkeresque quip.”
She also kept young reporters on track, he said.
“She’d say, ‘Someone at the meeting is going to get up and yell for the first 15 minutes about his taxes, but he shows up at every meeting and complains. This is not news.’”
Post-Gazette reporter Marylynne Pitz remembered a favorite quip: “After a tough day in the newsroom, Marcia would say, ‘I'm going home and having three fingers of Virginia Gentleman,’” a bourbon whiskey.
Friends who visited the Bennetts at their retirement home in Virginia remember her crab cakes. Former Post-Gazette features copy editor Wendy Warner wrote, “For me they were the gold standard by which I’ve measured every crab cake since.”
When this reporter was assigned the desk beside her in 1990, she graced me with a little bow and said conspiratorially, as though I was in for quite a ride, “Welcome to our world.”
She was preceded in death by her husband, Frank. In addition to her son Bruce, she is survived by sons Jim Bennett of Brentwood and Drew Bennett of Baltimore.
Her ashes will be buried near her former home in Virginia.