Sylvia Benton

Sylvia Benton passed away peacefully on October 19, 2026, at age 88.

Sylvia is survived by her daughter, Nancy Benton, her son-in-law, Jon Schultze, and her granddaughter, Rachel Schultze. She was preceded in death by her parents, David and Belle Blanc, and her brother and sister-in-law, Arthur and Harriet Blanc.

Sylvia was born in the Bronx, New York, on May 24, 1938. During the Second World War, the family lived in Baltimore, Maryland, where her father worked as a wartime electrician in the shipyards. Following the war, the family moved back to New York, where they settled in Flushing, Queens. Sylvia graduated from Jamaica High School in Queens in 1956, and received a BA in history from NYU in 1960.

Sylvia married Robert (Bob) Benton, a dentist, in 1960 and spent the next 3 years at Fort Benning, GA, where Bob was an Army Captain and dentist. In 1963, she and Bob moved back to Long Island, NY, where she helped him to establish a dental practice in Central Islip and served as his first chairside assistant and receptionist.

Following the birth of their only child, Nancy, she and Bob built a house in St. James, NY, where she lived for 20 years. In the early 1970s, Sylvia entered graduate school at SUNY Stony Brook to pursue a PhD in cultural anthropology. She spent the summer of 1974 in a remote village in Guatemala doing an archeological excavation, and she lived in Taipei, Taiwan, from 1976-1977, where she conducted research on Chinese clans for her thesis. She was awarded a PhD in 1980.

Following her divorce in 1987, Sylvia started a new life in Geneseo, NY, where she expanded her circle of friends, enjoyed the beauty of living in a more rural location, and worked to restore and manage a historic apartment building in Rochester, NY.

Sylvia was a loving and devoted daughter, sister, mother, grandmother, aunt, and friend. She was a lifelong learner who enjoyed reading, writing, gardening, cooking, being in nature, art, music, and spending time with her family and dogs.