Dinah M. Fischbach-Benson's Obituary
Dinah Mae Fischbach-BensonShe was born in Shelbina Missouri on August 1, 1944 and her parents were Russell Tillitt and Elnora Simpson. She is survived by one brother Daniel Tillitt of Payson Arizona. Her mother and father and then her older brother Russell Junior Tillitt preceded her in death. She grew up in Dearborn Michigan and graduated from Fordson High School in 1962. She entered the University of Michigan in the fall of 1962 earning her BA in Fine Arts and Art History from UofM Ann Arbor in 1966. Later that year she married her first husband William Fischbach II who was earning his JD at the University of Michigan Law School. After his graduation from Law School they moved to Santa Monica California where William was an attorney in a local law firm. They moved to Irvine in Orange County and in November of 1972 Dinah gave birth to her only child, William M. Fischbach III. Her first husband was the first elected Mayor of the newly incorporated city of Irvine California. They divorced in 1974 and then she met her second and current husband Kenneth Benson who had started at the Graduate Business School at the University of California at Irvine in 1976. They would be married on the first day of spring, March 21st 1978 and would live in Irvine California until 1982 when they moved to Hancock Park in Los Angeles California. Dinah entered The Southwestern School of Law in Los Angeles in 1982 and would earn her JD degree in 1985. Shortly thereafter she passed the California Bar and became a practicing attorney focusing on Workers Compensation and Labor Defense. They jointly had custody with her first husband and his second wife William and Maureen Fischbach of Newport Beach California and they raised their son William Fischbach III in Los Angeles where he graduated from Fairfax High School and then went on to Arizona State University for his undergraduate degree and then on to Tulane in New Orleans Louisiana where he got a combined JD and MBA degree. Shortly thereafter he volunteered for the US Army and served 11 years in the Judge Advocate Group before leaving the US Army achieving the rank of Major. He is married to Terri Rodzevik and they now live in Phoenix, AZ. In 1992 Dinah and Ken moved to Oakland CA where they have resided since except for a brief 2 and ½ year stint of living in Littleton Colorado in the mid-1990. Dinah was very active in the Oakland Community where she served on the Oakland City Budget Advisory Commission, served as a Board Member on the Wildfire Prevention Assessment District, and then she and her husband helped fund and start an Oakland based nonprofit the Oakland Firesafe Council that promotes and supports activities that focus on wildfire prevention and disaster preparedness. She was an avid quilter and fabric artist who enjoyed making things for and giving quilts, bags, and other items to friends and family. Besides her brother Daniel and her husband Kenneth Benson and son William Fischbach III she is also survived locally in Oakland and San Francisco by her second cousin and dear relative Tamara Rakestraw and her Nephew Russell Tillitt and his wife Candice Tappin-Tillitt and their two children Annabel and Sanders of San Francisco, CA. Then there are her numerous cousins and their families and then other nieces, nephews, and grandnieces and grandnephews on both sides of hers and Ken’s family that were loved and cherished. She is being Memorialized on Wednesday November the 14th at 1pm at Chapel of the Chimes in Hayward CA and then remembered at an open house at her Oakland Hills home that afternoon at 4pm. She would love to have those of you so inclined to make a donation or contribution in her memory to her favorite cause via the non-profit we both helped start and fund Oakland Firesafe Council at www.oaklandfiresafecouncil.org and lastly she would want you to be not melancholy or saddened by her passing but glad and happy over the time fleeting and short it might seem at the time spent together.
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