Harriett M. Benjamin, Wellness Community co-founder, dies at 85

HAROLD BENJAMIN was devastated when his beloved wife of 25 years was diagnosed with breast cancer.

That was 1972, when Benjamin was a successful real-estate lawyer in Beverly Hills, Calif.

He gave up his career when his wife, the former Harriett Miller, was diagnosed and he had what he called an "epiphany."

He was at the wheel of his car when the bright light of inspiration struck him. In that instant, he conceived an alternative approach to fighting cancer.

He would establish a support center that would help cancer patients assume an active role in their recovery.

He called it "patient-active."

And so it was that Harriett Benjamin's disease became the inspiration for what developed into a worldwide movement to give cancer patients control of their own destiny.

The Wellness Community, established in 1982 in Santa Monica, Calif., was the first of what would be similar centers in major cities, including Philadelphia, and three other countries.

Harriett, a native of Hammonton, N.J., was cancer-free for 35 years, but died April 7 after developing lung cancer.

She was 85 and lived in Marina del Rey, Calif.

Harriett took a leading role in working with patients and in other activities of the movement, until recently.

She led orientation meetings for newcomers to the West Los Angeles Wellness Community and helped train others to lead them. The centers charge no fee to participate.

"She was the heart and soul of our organization," said Kim Thiboldeaux, president of what became the Cancer Support Community after the Wellness Community merged recently with Gilda's Club, named for comedian Gilda Radner, who died of ovarian cancer.

"It was a brave and bold move for her years ago to decide she was going to be very public about her own cancer experience," Thiboldeaux said of Harriett.

"She did not want people to face cancer alone."

Harriett made a habit of taking fresh strawberries to every Wellness Community meeting from the local farmer's market.

"Those strawberries were way more than strawberries," said executive director Ellen Silver.

"She knew they symbolized sweetness and also the prickly nature of life."

Her husband, Harold, was a native Philadelphian and a 1942 graduate of West Philadelphia High School, where he was on the tennis team.

He met Harriett when both were students at Penn State, where she earned bachelor's and master's degrees in business and social economics.

She worked as an agricultural researcher at Cornell University while her husband attended its law school.

In 1964, the family moved to Los Angeles, where she worked for a time at a travel agency.

Both before and after her cancer diagnosis, Harriett liked to tool around West Los Angeles on a cherry red Honda motorcycle.

The Benjamins believed that their attitude toward rehabilitation was partly shaped by their experience in living from 1968 to 1975 at Synanon, the controversial drug-rehab center founded in Santa Monica by Charles Dederich. Dederich is widely credited with coining the phrase:

"Today is the first day of the rest of your life."

The Benjamins were not drug addicts, but joined Synanon because of its self-help philosophy. They left when Dederich turned it into a cult.

They were living at Synanon when Harriett was diagnosed with breast cancer.

"Because at the time Harold and I were involved in a social movement in Santa Monica based on self-reliance, I knew that it was important that I fight for my recovery and not be passive in the face of adversity," she once said.

Her husband died in 2004. She is survived by two daughters, Ann and Lauren, a grandson and two great-grandchildren.

Services: A memorial service will be arranged for May.