Charlotte P. Benowitz

Charlotte  P. Benowitz

(1945-2020)

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

Philippians 1:21

Charlotte Pierantoni Benowitz was born and raised in Parkchester, a community in the Central Bronx and in the neighborhoods of Country Club and Pelham Bay, New York.  She was a member of the Fox Street Mennonite Church (Lancaster Mennonite Conference) and the House of Friendship Mennonite Church (Atlantic Coast Mennonite Conference) both in the Bronx.  She served with her parents, who were instrumental in establishing the St. Ann’s Mennonite Church in the Bronx.  She spent her childhood summers in Lancaster, Cumberland, and Franklin Counties attending the Mellinger Mennonite Church in Lancaster and the Rowe Mennonite Church in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania.  In 1964, she graduated from the James Monroe High School in the Bronx.  In 1964, she married Jerry Benowitz of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Lancaster Mennonite High School Class of 1960) at the House of Friendship Mennonite Church.  They met while he was serving in Manhattan with the Eastern Mennonite Board of Missions working and studying at the New York University School of Medicine.  She was a student at the Montefiore School of Nursing in Mount Vernon, New York.  She was employed by Manufacturers Hanover Trust J. P. Morgan Chase on Wall Street; United Publishers Library Services, Inc., Darlington, New Jersey; and Am-Tree Developmental Nursery School, Montvale, New Jersey.  She was active in the local ministries of the Grace Conservative Baptist Church, particularly teaching Sunday school and vacation Bible school, of Nanuet, New York in Rockland County, where she lived for forty-six years in Chestnut Ridge (formerly Monsey) New York.  In 2014, she moved to the Masonic Village in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania.  She was a member of the Elizabethtown Mennonite Church.  She was predeceased by her husband of fifty-six years Jerry Benowitz.  She is survived by her son Jean-Paul Benowitz and daughter-in-law Amy Lynn (Mango) Benowitz of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. She is survived by her daughter Althea Marie (Benowitz) Lazar, son-in-law Larry Ira Lazar, grandson Ryan Henry Lazar, and granddaughter Heather Danielle Lazar of Delray Beach, Florida.  She was predeceased by her father Charles Augustus Pierantoni, her mother Mary (Penalver) Pierantoni, her brothers Charles A. Pierantoni, William Pierantoni, Daniel Pierantoni and sister-in-law Elaine (Zimmerman) Pierantoni, sister Stephanie (Pierantoni) Beck and brother–in-law Barry Paul Beck, nephew Edward Charles Vogt, sister-in-law Judith A. (Goldner) Pierantoni, father-in-law Meyers Benowitz, mother-in-law Bella (Bender) Benowitz, sister-in-law Ruth (Brody) Cohen, brother–in-law Sidney Cohen, nephew Howard Alan Cohen, sister-in-law Marcia (Benowitz) Brzezinski, and brother-in-law Irvin Benowitz.  She is survived by her brother Louis Nelson Pierantoni and sister-in-law Arlene (Eshelmen) Pierantoni of Harmon, West Virginia; brother Ronald Pierantoni and sister-in-law Anna Mary (Coblentz) Pierantoni of Harrisonburg, Virginia; brother Gary Pierantoni of Atlantic Beach, New York; sister Marsha (Pierantoni) Vogt, brother-in-law Edward Richard Vogt of New City, New York; brother-in-law Ernest P. Brzezinski of Reynoldsburg, Ohio, sister-in-law Bedelia A. (Pastrana) Pierantoni, of Charlotte, North Carolina, and several generations of nephews, nieces, and cousins.  Services are being held privately.