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Obituary (VA): Mrs. Florence (William D. Bonvillian '39)

Posted on 07/09/2019

Florence Elizabeth Bonvillian May 17, 1918 – July 1, 2019 Florence Elizabeth (Betty) Boone Bonvillian died in Charlottesville, Virginia on July 1, 2019. She was born in San Francisco, California in 1918 and died at the age of 101. She was the daughter of a U.S. Navy physician and surgeon, Captain Horace Ratliff Boone and his wife, Loretta Irwin Boone. Betty moved frequently as she grew up; indeed, she once observed that she had spent Christmas Day in 22 different locations during her first 23 years. Among these different locations were Managua, Nicaragua; San Diego, California; and Bremerton, Washington. She particularly loved spending Christmas with her grandparents at their home in Highland, Kansas. Betty loved art, reading, classical music, and flowers. She mastered the art of flower arranging, read constantly, played the cello and piano, and as a girl was an active Girl Scout. She spent a year at Scripps College (in the Claremont system) and then graduated from the University of Washington with a bachelor's degree in home economics with a specialization in dietary nursing. She highly valued education and insisted upon a strong educational foundation for her children. In 1941, in Honolulu, Hawaii, Betty married William (Bill) Doughty Bonvillian, a 1939 Naval Academy graduate. They experienced the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor together over breakfast – Betty rushed to her work at the local hospital and Bill to the harbor to board a destroyer. Bill served on a destroyer then commanded a seaplane squadron in the Pacific campaigns. Following the war, they had three children: William, John and Anne. She also helped to raise a niece, Rosalyn, and aided her second niece, Marian, when their mother died. Betty was always generous at opening her home to friends and family and was kind and gracious to all. As the children grew up, the family moved up and down the East coast with Bill's Navy duty assignments as an aviator. After Bill's retirement as a Navy Captain in 1963, the family settled in Wilton, Connecticut. With Bill's unexpected death in 1967, Betty began a career as an elementary school teacher in the Wilton public schools. She earned a master's degree and taught second, third and fourth grades over many happy years. After her retirement she moved to Arlington, Virginia and joined her sister Marjorie Boone, a retired State Department officer. They subsequently re-located to Charlottesville, Virginia where they spent their final years together. Betty is survived by two of her children, William Boone Bonvillian of Great Falls, Virginia, Anne Bonvillian Beckenstein of Whitefish, Montana, a niece, Marian Renken Hjortsberg of Livingston, Montana, six grandchildren: Raphael and Marco Bonvillian, Gabriel, Ariel, and Daniel Goldstein, Allison Beckenstein and four great grandchildren: Maya Goldstein, Connor Dart, and Eden and Isla Bonvillian. Betty's son John Doughty Bonvillian, a University of Virginia professor, died last spring, her sister Marjorie Boone in 2017, and her niece Rosalyn Renken Mina in 2004.

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