- Date Of Birth: August 7, 1941
- Date Of Death: March 1, 2023
- State: Ohio
Bonnie passed away at Doctors West Hospital on March 1 at the age of 81 with those who loved her at her side and Coltrane playing. Bonnie had prevailed over multiple health challenges for the last two decades through her stubborn will to live, but this battle was one too many for Bonnie to win.
Born and raised in Columbus, she attended North High School. She was active in the Model United Nations and the debate club. Her skill and love for debate she carried with her all of her life (often to the chagrin of those she engaged in debate with). She graduated in 1959 and attended The Ohio State University (OSU) for next three years. At OSU she worked part-time at the athletic department where she met, fell in love with and then married Rodney Steele. When Rod got a job as an economist at the Central Intelligence Agency, and they both moved to Washington, DC. They lived in a townhouse in Georgetown just down the street from where Jackie and John Kennedy lived before his inauguration a couple of years earlier. As a hobby, she loved to paint, and painted a beautiful copy of Matisse’s goldfish.
In 1965, Rod and Bonnie moved to the first planned city in the country, Reston, Virginia. Founded a year earlier it was envisioned as a kind of urban utopia預 place with swimming pools, community centers, and tennis courts in every neighborhood and no restrictions based on race.
In 1969, she was a PhD candidate in political science at OSU, when few women were in the field. In the spring of 1970, students throughout the nation struck against the bombing in Cambodia and racial and gender inequality including OSU. Ohio Governor James Rhodes ordered the National Guard to occupy campuses throughout the state. Bonnie recounted teaching undergraduates about democracy, and then walking out of the building where there was martial law with the National Guard was using tear gas, carrying guns with bayonets on the Oval.
She then returned to Reston to start a family, and had her beloved daughter Cathi on March 17, 1971. By 1974, her husband tragically died in a TWA plane destined for Dulles Airport which crashed into a mountain. She devoted her time, attention and love to raising her daughter as a single mother. She struggled through many difficulties, but she always maintained her hope for a better future and love for her daughter.
She passed on her mission to end poverty and pursue social justice to Cathi.
Bonnie was preceded in death by her husband Rodney E. Steele, parents Richard C. and Mary E. Palmer, and is survived by her daughter, Cathi Steele, her brothers Robert and Richard C. Palmer Jr., several nieces, nephews, grandnieces, grand nephews, MWA’s members, supporters and volunteers throughout central Ohio and organizers throughout the nation who fondly remember worked with her. She will be missed.
