Person Page - 6

     Robert was born at Albion, Boone Co., Nebraska, on 5 June 1931. He was the son of Orlo Roy Bonner and Mable Lissie Rea. He was baptized at Logan, NE, on 27 March 1932. Religion: Methodist Church. Robert Roy Bonner died on 16 October 2007 at Santa Clara, California. The funeral was at St. Lucy Catholic Church in Campbell, California. He was buried on 25 October 2007 at Veterans Cemetery, Dixon, California.
     Robert Roy Bonner lived at Bob and Pat Bonner, 240 Hollis Ave #16, Campbell, CA.

     Ernest was born at Logan, Harrison Co., Nebraska, on 2 December 1932. He was the son of Orlo Roy Bonner and Mable Lissie Rea. Ernest Rea Bonner died on 22 April 2004 at Kaiser Hospital, Clackamas, Clackamas county, OR.
'An orchestrator and a focuser'

Planner of downtown Portland's renaissance dies at 71

Ernie Bonner also played large roles in affordable housing and maintaining pedestrian friendliness

By RANDY GRAGG
THE OREGONIAN

From the moment he arrived in 1973 to become director of urban planning, Ernie Bonner began building a modern Portland, from Tom McCall Waterfront Park to Pioneer Courthouse Square.

Up to the days just before he died Thursday night after a long bout with cancer, Bonner continued the mission, trying to move the Eastbank Freeway, to connect the north and south Park Blocks, and to draw attention to the city's shortage of affordable housing.

One of Portland's most committed activists and urban historians, Bonner was 71.

"If anybody laid the foundation for planning in Portland for the last 25 years, it was Ernie Bonner," said Nohad Toulan, dean of Portland State University's College of Urban and Public Affairs. "There has been very little done that you will not find his fingerprints on. He never stopped."

Bonner is most often identified with Portland's legendary 1972 Downtown Plan, the action agenda that set the city's storied renaissance in motion. Recruited to Portland in 1973 from Cleveland, Ohio, Bonner became the public handshake to the barnstorming changes then Mayor Neil Goldschmidt brought to the city. But his activities and impact were even wider.

Praise from Goldschmidt

"We sent him out to make peace, and he brought back a vision," said Goldschmidt at last year's Urban Pioneer Award ceremony honoring Bonner. "He produced great work when a great city needed it most."

"Ernie was really the guy who figured out how to do neighborhood planning and operate in an environment of citizen participation," said Bill Scott, who as an executive assistant to Goldschmidt hired Bonner. "Ernie was a cheerleader, an orchestrator and a focuser."

Bonner also oversaw less visible changes to the city overseeing the city code rewrite that preserved and restored Portland's pedestrian friendliness, the prominent views of Mount Hood and the city's much celebrated scale.

Born Dec. 2, 1932,, in Logan, Iowa, Bonner earned his master's degree in urban and regional planningfrom Cornell University. He rose to chief planner for Cleveland, Ohio, overseeing the creation of that city's comprehensive plan, which, in 2003, the American Planning Association named a National Historic Planning Landmark.

Bonner left as Portland's planning chief in 1978. He served as a Metro councilor, as president of Sunlight Energy Systems, as a distributor of solar equipment and then as energy conservation manager for the Bonneville Power Administration.

Volunteer contributions

Bonner continued to leave plenty of fingerprints across the city, mostly as a volunteer. As a member of Save Our Schools, he helpd prevent Cleveland High School's demolition. With the Riferfront for People, he worked to move the Eastbank Freeway off the Willamette River. He founded Metro 7, a nonprofit producer of cableaccess programming.

More recently, he served on the Portland Planning Commission and joined the Park Blocks Foundation, working with Goldschmidt and developer Tom Moyer to link the north and south Park Blocks.

Bonner played an instrumental role in the Portland City Club's landmark study of the city's affordable housing in 2000. His expertise helped quantify the system's successes and failures for the first time, according to the study's chairman, Clyde Doctor. It also convinced the committee that more money should go to individual rent subsidy rather than to building more housing, a stand highly unpopular with the construction and finance industry.

"Emie was a model citizen," Doctor said. "Beyond being smart, he had wisdom and humanity."

Archive at Web site

As he continued to work for the city's future, Bonner created an extraordinary archive of the city's planning achievements and processes of the '70s on his ever-expanding Web site, www.pdxplan.org. Friends recalled getting emails about updates to the site just days before his death. Bonner was also hard at work on a video project on Pioneer Courthouse Square.

"He loved the city and in a very quiet, persuasive, persistent way led us into the right direction and forced us to think about things we might not have," Mayor Vera Katz said. "There are not many city leaders left like Ernie Bonner so committed to the city and to educating people about it."

"Ernie's view was, `Whatever we do, we've got time,"' said Jim Westwood, president of the Park Blocks Foundation. "We do what we can today, but it's what benefits the next century that matters.

Bonner is survived by his wife, Lynn; two daughters, Kathleen Houk of Los Gatos, Calif., Christine Bonner of Portland; and two grandchildren.

The family says a memorial service will be held in a few eweeks. Donations to continue Metro 7, Bonner's nonprofit umbrella for this Portland history project, will be accepted.

(printed in The Oregonian, Saturday, April 24, 2004.).

     He graduated from high school at Morrill, NE. School:. Ernest graduated at Boulder, CO, in 1960. Institution: at University of Colorado. Ernest Rea Bonner lived at Ernest and Lynn Bonner, 2924 NE 27th, Portland, OR. The Ernie Bonner Family by Ernest Rea Bonner 8/6/97.

From Logan, Iowa to Portland, Oregon--through Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Idaho, New York, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, California, Ohio and Massachusetts.

     Ernie Bonner was born on Dec. 2, 1932 in Logan (Harrison County), Iowa to Orlo Roy Bonner (Dad) and Maybelle (originally Mable) Lizzie (Rea) Bonner (Mom). He was the second of six children born to Orlo and Maybelle: Robert, Ernest, George, Elizabeth (Betty), Quintan and Brian (in order of descending age).

     Over the next few years, they would move to various towns in eastern Nebraska, including Howells and Albion. Dad worked mainly in print shops, becoming a well-known and expert printer, according to Uncle Ervin. But even though he was sought after, he didn’t get paid very well during the depression. [One story he told: on Saturday afternoon when it was quitting time for the week (unless the press broke down), the owner and Dad would get into the cash register and split what was there, right down the middle! I’m sure there were some weeks when it was very disappointing for both Dad and Mom when so little could be brought home for expenses. Dad was also a good musician. I don’t know how he learned to play, but he could play a lot of instruments. He was in a dance band in Albion, I know, when I remember going down to a local park to see him play one summer. He talked later in life about meeting Lawrence Welk at some of the all-night cafes and restaurants that traveling bands used after performances, when Welk and his band would show up at the same place as Dad and his band.] I remember quite a bit about Albion, where we lived in 4 separate houses during a stay of about 6 years. I remember getting our first electric train there. I remember watching a friend (not much older than me) rolling some weeds into a cigarette, and smoking it. And I remember one day 3 or 4 of us sneaking into the back seat of Dad’s car before he went to work, and riding downtown in the back, unbeknownst to him (I think). When he got downtown, we jumped out, and got to go inside, meet the other workers, and I remember getting some kind of a treat--candy or something. I remember seeing a car wreck there, and it was so scary that I ran home. I remember the day we all went to the park, and inadvertently left Bob at home. When we rushed back to the house, there he was sitting sadly on the curb with our dog. The houses we lived in are probably still standing in Albion. On a recent trip to Nebraska, Christine and I searched for them. I found two which were definitely houses we lived in, but couldn’t for sure find the other two.
     We moved to the big city (North Platte) just before the war. I entered the fourth grade there. I had my first paper route there, and my first bike--which I bought with the proceeds of the paper route. In fact, one of the paper routes I had included the so-called red light district in North Platte in a row of hotels strung out along the railroad tracks in what was then pretty much the center of town. (I knew nothing about the practice of prostitution, and always wondered why the women at the hotel where I delivered papers walked around with bath robes or less on in the middle of the day). I had my first date there, in the fifth grade. I got 50 cents from Grandad Rea so I could take a girl friend to the school carnival. I got my first taste of the excitement of the theater, from the annual summer run of the Hugo Players, in a tent, pitched in a large vacant lot across the street from our house on 10th. We got free tickets for helping the crew put up the tent. Betty, our only sister, died there of polio. We actually had a household full of polio. It was so bad, and people were so scared of the disease, that we were quarantined in the house. Dad had to work, so he had to leave the house and not return--but he snuck back into the house every night. (Bob had a real severe case of it and had to go to Lincoln for therapy. George even had polio twice, bringing him much fame from national newspapers.) I attended Elementary school, Junior High School and my first year in high school in North Platte. I remember building model airplanes in the dining room. One day, several of us were downtown for some reason, and I stole a 10 cent airplane kit. The experience was so frightening that I will never forget it. I remember competing in the soap box derby, going to boy scout camp, riding my bike clear across town to go swimming in the sand pits north of town in the summer (near what is now the Interstate, with motels and restaurants, etc.), walking 7 miles north out of town every Sunday for a period of time to visit my first real crush at her farm home. And when I went to high school I remember playing in the marching band and in the jazz band, taking Latin and getting razzed because I wasn’t big enough to be in high school. I remember going all over town on my bike; once almost killing myself as I sped down the viaduct over the railroad tracks and braked hard to avoid a left-turning car. I spilled on the bike and went skidding under the front of the car. Close! [Dad worked for most of the time he was in North Platte at the local newspaper, but he also worked on the railroad (as a station agent) for awhile, and he tried trucking once, too. I don’t know why he decided to try trucking, probably had something to do with money. I remember one night Mom woke me up and sent me down to the newspaper office to help Dad. It must have been after midnight. Dad had slipped and stabbed a screwdriver right through his finger, and could not really use that hand that well, so he wanted me to help him with two good hands, as the linotype he was working on had to be ready for work in the morning. He was the most diligent man I have ever known. Mom often spent time at the railroad station helping the local red cross or other organization feed troops as they crossed the nation--because the troop trains were full of troops but had no food facilities.]

     In the summer of 1947 we moved to Morrill, Nebraska where Mom and Dad had bought a weekly newspaper, The Morrill Mail. Dad had a column in that newspaper called, "Beets, Beans, and Bull!" And Mom helped out in the front office. The older boys learned how to print there--Bob learned the linotype and Ernie learned the presses and composition. We lived in the back end of the newspaper shop. [That was where we found a box of old love letters that Mom and Dad wrote to each other before they were married. I remember one particular letter when Mom wrote that she sure wished Dad were there to keep her knees warm the way he did last Saturday night!]. Ernie gave up band, and played basketball and ran track. Bob played football. (Ernie never could stand physical pain). Ernie was sent to Boys’ State by the local Rotary Club because he gave the best speech--or, rather, he told the best joke at the beginning of the speech. (Boys’ State was a week stay in Lincoln, the capital of Nebraska, for one selected representative from each high school in Nebraska. While there we campaigned for political office and learned about politics and government. Girls’ State was a similar program). Ernie and Bob graduated from Morrill High School in May of 1950. Bob and I (and probably George also) both liked being in Morrill. It was a small high school and we got to do things there we couldn’t dream of doing in North Platte High, so when Dad approached us with the idea of selling the paper and going to Scottsbluff to get work, we weren’t happy. To Dad and Mom’s great credit, they put off selling the paper for a year so we could finish high school in Morrill. I know that put them even further in debt than they were, and was a great sacrifice to make for us. I really appreciated it then, and I still do.

     In 1950, Dad and Mom sold the Morrill Mail and we were off to Scottsbluff, a whopping 15 miles away. Dad worked at the newspaper there, originally. Later on, he got a job at a job print shop. I got a job working at the same newspaper as Dad at night, and went to Scottsbluff Junior College during the day. I was just beginning to see the world, and was fascinated. Needless to say, I didn’t study much--mostly hung out with the big boys from the big city and dreamed of chasing girls (I wouldn’t have dreamed of actually chasing them!), and worked half the night at the newspaper. After a semester of that, I quit the Junior College and worked for the remainder of the year. The next year I was off to Chadron State Teachers’ College in Chadron, Nebraska--first time I was away from home. Again, I got a good part-time job at the local newspaper and went to school part time. I remember only taking Spanish there. Again, not much studying. But I did have a couple of exciting romantic interludes. And, oh yes, another guy and myself tried out for cheerleader, just for a lark--and we won. Then we had to be cheerleaders! I lasted at Chadron only two years.

     Got anxious to travel the world, so I joined the army (specifically, I volunteered for the draft so I would only have to be in for 2 years). But before I got out of boot camp, the Korean war had been halted, and my great chance to go overseas melted away. Instead, I stayed at Fort Riley, Kansas for a year, and then was sent to Fort Carson in Colorado for the second year of my tour. During that tour, our whole regiment hiked from Colorado Springs to Vail, Colorado. I haven’t liked camping and hiking since. The Army was a real eye-opener for me, as I had never seen ethnic diversity in Nebraska. There were African Americans (then called negroes), Italians, Irish, Jewish and others with urban backgrounds and then there were us rural types. It was quite a mix. I left the Army in June of 1955, moving to Sterling, Colorado where my parents were working at a newspaper and job printing shop. I spent the Summer there and then enrolled at the University of Colorado on the GI Bill.

     The day I left Sterling for Boulder, with my old chevy loaded up with all of my earthly possessions (actually, only had the back seat filled), was one of the most exciting of my life. I remember the feeling still. Off to the big university to become rich and famous. And for the first month or so, it was truly exciting. Then I had to start studying. Actually, after an uncertain start, I did pretty good there. I started in architecture, then transferred to Architectural Engineering and Business, a joint 5-year degree that was supposed to be what the big firms hiring wanted. As usual, I worked part time at the local newspaper and went to school full-time. Lots of time it was rough, but it now doesn’t seem like it was difficult at all. I got interested in musical comedy there, getting into two campus musical productions (played Scranton Slim in Guys and Dolls). I stayed in rooming houses, mostly, and ate lunch and dinner with other students at a house near campus. When I got to the university, it was equally as diverse as the Army, but the great differences there were those of class. And it was the first time I came across individuals who were citizens of other lands.

     I met Glenda Louise Prosser in my last year at Colorado, just about Christmas time. She worked at the Boulder Daily Camera where I did. Her parents, Glenn and Carleene Prosser, owned and operated the Estes Park Trail, a newspaper and job printing shop in Estes Park, Colorado. We got married April 16, 1960 in Estes Park, and went on a honeymoon in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. I remember I took a lot of photographs of bridges and mountains and streams and other natural wonders, but only a few of people.

     After my 4th year at Colorado, I came across the idea of city planning. I thought that was pretty neat. Why satisfy yourself with the design of just a building. Why not go for the whole city? I took a class in the Fall of my last year, and got the bug. So when the new year came around (just about the time I met Glenda), I applied to MIT, Cornell and the University of Washington for financial assistance to go to graduate school in urban planning. I was turned down by MIT, but accepted by the University of Washington, and heard nothing from Cornell. So Glenda and I decided to enroll at Washington. And, as luck would have it, Frank Brown, a classmate of mine, offered me a job working for him designing a prefabricated a-frame cabin using scrap lumber from his father’s lumber mill in McCall, Idaho. So we went up to McCall to help Frank for the Summer on our way to Seattle to enroll at Washington.
     
     McCall was great--the place where rich people from Boise go to swim for the Summer, and ski for the winter. It was a nice little town, with a great little golf course. But our accommodations were the pits! They were free, but they were the pits! We lived in the last of several old cabins on the lake. When we first got there , it was great. Just get up in the morning and walk down to the lake. But before the Summer was out, they had begun construction on a new lodge there and our little cabin got squeezed more and more between the road and the new construction. And to add to that, there was no bath, toilet or shower in our cabin, and only a wood stove for cooking. So we were glad to get out of there before the Summer was over. It must have been about the end of July when we finally got word from Cornell. Surprise! They not only offered a scholarship but a part time research job at the University. So we reversed gears, and made new plans not to go west, but to go east to Ithaca, New York.

     Glenda’s mother gave us her car, and we loaded a trailer on back, and in September of 1960 we headed for New York. We lived in a basement apartment when we first got there, and were glad to get it. Housing was tight, as it always is around universities and colleges in small towns. Cornell was difficult for me. I did not get good grades there. I did get a good education about banking and housing issues from my research job. And I first worked with ‘computers’ there, running a huge IBM sorter to do statistical analyses of data series. When money got scarce after a few months, it became obvious that I would have to get a job to be able to support us. And, of course, Glenda was pregnant.

     Kathleen Louise Bonner was born March 2, 1961 in Ithaca (Tompkins County), New York. She was born prematurely, so she was very tiny. She used to take about an ounce of milk every hour or so. It was hard to see her with her miniature hands and feet and realize that she would grow to become a beautiful person. She was a great delight to me, and more engrossing than going to school.

     But it was clear that we had to find a solution to our financial problems. So I decided to cut back to part time at school, and get a job downtown at the planning office in Ithaca. This turned out to be a great move. The Director was Tom Niederkorn, a wonderful person and town planner, who helped me understand a lot of what goes on in planning offices to compare with the theory that I was learning up on ‘the hill.’ It meant that I would be 3 years getting a Masters Degree, but I really believe it contributed greatly to my career. For instance, I first met Rai Okamoto there, as an urban renewal planner from a firm in Philadelphia. And in every class from then on, I knew from personal experience why the methods and practices being taught were sometimes useful, and how they sometimes didn’t help that much. At Cornell, I didn’t really get into the history and the design, but I did get into the finance and the forecasting methods. In short, I liked techniques of analysis, but was weak in design and history.

     In the meantime, we moved from ‘the hill’ to ‘the flats,’ and began the 9-month vigil for our second child, Christine Lynn Bonner. Christine was born on June 13, 1963, again in Ithaca (Tompkins County), New York. At the time we were living in an upstairs apartment over a barber shop and grocery story about 10 blocks from downtown Ithaca, close to Cayuga Lake. The doctors feared that she, too, would be premature, so Glenda was forced to curtail a lot of activity. But as it turned out, she was a healthy, full-term baby, all bubbling and burping and ............ And soon she would join us for the trek back to Colorado.

     In my last year at Cornell, I took a planning analysis and techniques course taught by Barclay Jones. This course included material on input-output analyses, my first encounter with this at that time sophisticated forecasting method. Because I was at the time preparing material needed for a comprehensive land use plan for Ithaca, it seemed this method was made to order for planners who need to understand the interactions and effects of economic activity on the range of land use demands in their jurisdictions. And when I learned that an economics professor at the University of Colorado was doing such an analysis on Boulder, Colorado, I immediately wrote and asked if there were room on the staff for me. He seemed interested in having a person trained in urban planning on the team, so he agreed to hire me part time on the NASA-funded research project, and he got me a part time job teaching in the Architecture Department. I finished all the requirements for my Masters degree at Cornell in the Summer of 1963, just hours before we headed west to Colorado.

     In Boulder, we lived at the faculty housing complex--probably the best housing for a family I have ever lived in. Kathleen and Chris ranged widely about the safe, interior court of the apartments, and there were a lot of friendly people as neighbors. I enjoyed the research, and eventually was a co-author on the final report. During that research, I met Charlie Leven, an economist from Washington University in St. Louis, who suggested that I go on to get a PhD in economics. In fact, he helped me get an NDEA fellowship to the University of Pittsburgh to do just that.

     So in the Summer of 1965, Kathleen and Chris and Glenda and I headed off in our little Volkswagen beetle to the steel City on the Monongahela River in western Pennsylvania. At the University I had the luxury for the first time in my life of going to school full time, without having to work at another job to support ourselves. I majored in International Trade, Economic Development and Quantitative Methods. I even had my own office at the school.

     When we first lived in Pittsburgh, we lived in public housing a short distance from the University. This experience demonstrated clearly why we did not want to be poor and without hope like many of the people there. I will never forget the struggle it was to live in that place. I know a lot of my growing liberal sense of economic injustice got a good watering there. We moved (at some considerable financial sacrifice) to a more suburban area called East Hills in our second year there, where the kids had a large open forest to run in and we had a brand new 2-bedroom town house. Compared to the public housing accommodations, that was heaven. We had great neighbors--Weldon and Faye Williams and their three children. And I had a 20-minute commute to work--with a colleague at the University down the street. I got good grades. I finished all of my course work and passed my qualifying exams. and I began my dissertation--on the migration patterns of black households in major American cities. It was sometime in 1966 or 1967 that we met and became good friends with Norm and Virginia Krumholz. Norm had graduated from Cornell as I had, and was in Pittsburgh working for the Pittsburgh Planning Department. He and I were soon to get into a lot of trouble together, but that must wait . . . In the Spring of 1968, I got a call from Ved Prakash, a friend and colleague from Cornell, about the possibility of teaching urban and regional planning at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Wisconsin. I visited Madison, talked to Ved and to Leo Jakobsen, then the Chairman of the Department, was offered the job and accepted. And before I finished my dissertation Kathleen, Chris, Glenda and I were back in our Volkswagen beetle, this time heading west to Wisconsin.

     We started off on the wrong foot in Madison by being forced into the only available home we could afford, which was across the tracks from Madison proper, close by the Oscar Myer Weiner plant in an industrial area. The railroad was close to the house, and Chris and Kathleen used to climb into the waiting box cars to play. Good thing I didn’t know what they were doing! There were some wonderful places to live in Madison, near lakes and forests, but we were not able to find a place at our price. I didn’t particularly like the petty politics I saw among the university faculty. And I never did get over the perception of my lack of intellectual prowess amidst all those brains. And then Glenda fell in love with William Clark, one of the professors at the university and we separated in the summer of 1969. (At the end of the fall term in 1969, Glenda left with Kathleen and Christine for California with William Clark, who was to teach at UCLA).

     I sorely missed the kids, but I also really enjoyed being single for the first time in 10 years. I had lots of girl friends, and I could spend a lot of time at my job, which I did. The students were great; particularly those in a special class we designed and conducted during that fall term. But my teaching days were over. During that fall, I finally gave up on my PhD dissertation and the idea of ever getting a PhD. I also made plans to go to Chile at the end of the Fall term, to work at a research institute there for a friend of mine from Pittsburgh. And then Norm Krumholz called me from Pittsburgh and asked if I would like to go to work for him--he had just been appointed the Planning Director of Cleveland by Carl Stokes, the first black mayor of a major American city. Obviously, I said yes, and in January of 1970, I headed to Cleveland.

     Cleveland was fun and exciting. I was Chief Planner in charge of comprehensive planning. Our job was to develop a comprehensive plan for Cleveland. We also got a lot of interesting assignments on transportation and housing. And we even recommended that the city buy the giant electric utility. We eventually produced a body of work that gained national attention for its emphasis on equity and justice, rather than land and development. I visited Finland on a visiting professorship during the Summer of 1970. Kathleen joined me, and got a real crush on one of the Teaching Assistants there (a guy named Kaj). I had a diagnosed heart attack (it turned out to have been pericarditis) in San Diego.

     And Cleveland was where I met Lynn, my second wife. We met at a class at Case Western Reserve University in the Fall of 1971. She was a student there, getting a social work degree. I was a visiting lecturer, on why crime was a rational enterprise in Cleveland. After the class we made plans to meet at City Hall and talk about her project there, social indicators for the city. We both fell in love quickly. And on May 31, 1972, Ernie Bonner and Lucy Lynn Guilbert Bergstrom got married in Cleveland (Cuyahoga County), Ohio. Lynn had a son, Dirk Bergstrom, born on Oct. 6, 1967, from her previous marriage to Toby Bergstrom. We lived at the corner of Cedar and Belvoir in University Heights, Ohio, Lynn’s apartment before we got married.

     Carl Stokes left the mayor’s office at the end of 1971, deciding to call it quits after 2 terms in the mayor’s office. The new mayor was a so-called white ethnic named Ralph Perk. Ralph was a nice guy, and a bit of a populist, but he somehow didn’t appeal much to me as a boss. So I started looking around for a new job. A friend of mine at Cleveland State University happened to mention to me that his aunt in Milwaukie, Oregon had told him that there was a new young mayor in Portland, Oregon who was looking for a planning director. I wrote immediately, and was contacted soon by Bill Scott, in the Mayor’s office. We made plans to meet in Los Angeles so we could size each other up, and we both liked what we saw. I did apply for the job, beating out 2 other candidates. And in September of 1973, Lynn and Dirk and I headed west on the Canadian National Railway for Oregon.

     The job as Planning Director for Portland was much more responsibility than I had ever assumed before. I worked very hard, over long hours. It was in those years during the seventies that the groundwork was laid for the City of Portland that everyone touts today.

     Dad died in 1974, of complications from a gall bladder operation in a San Jose hospital. He was a great guy. He was smart. He was inventive. He worked hard. He was 100% supportive of me over his entire life. I miss him a lot.

     By the middle of 1978, I had had enough of the hurly-burly of planning, and left the city to strike out into something new. [For those wanting to know more about planning in Portland, see Ernie Bonner’s Planning Journal]

     We moved to our first house--on the east side (2836 SE Main)--in 1976, and stayed there for 20 years. Lynn got involved in some interesting challenges. She ran the first successful tri-county campaign for a zoo tax levy in 1976. And she joined the Tri-Met Marketing Department in 1977. While I was leaving the city to pursue other interests in 1978 (and wasn’t able to promise the same level of household support), Lynn signed on as a staff assistant to Commissioner Connie McCready, and brought in the bulk of the funds we needed to run the household. I worked as a consultant for awhile, but wasn’t that successful. I wouldn’t really get well financially until I got the job of advising Rogers Cable on their successful bid for the cable television franchise in Portland.

     In 1979, Kathleen graduated from University High School in Los Angeles, and would go on to UCLA for two years. Ernie was appointed in 1979 to the Metro Council, an elected regional governing body in Portland. He would run unopposed for the remainder of the term, then win in a general election for a full 4-year term. Over his term of office, he would hold the chairs of the Transportation and Recycling Committees, and the position of Presiding Officer. As part of Ernie’s run for the office in 1981, David Kish organized a golf tournament called the Ernie Bonner Classic to raise money for Ernie’s campaign. That golf tournament has continued to this day, with well over $10,000 earned for various local charitable causes.
     
     In 1980, Lynn went to work for Don Clark, the Chairman of the County Commissioners. And Ernie invested in a solar energy firm--a distributorship for Grumman solar water heating products. Lynn made a lot of good friends and a lot of money for the next 3 years. I made a lot of friends as well, but I lost a lot of money in the solar energy business.

     In 1983, I went to work for Bonneville Power Administration, where I worked until retirement on April 1, 1995. In 1982 Lynn went to work for the Jewish Federation of Portland. She ran the Portland-Multnomah County Public Safety Commission from 1984 to 1985, and in August of 1985 she began her job at Kaiser. She was laid off at Kaiser earlier this year and began preparations for a new career as a paralegal. Recently, she was re-hired by Kaiser, but will continue her studies.

     Ernie started his interest in video production in 1980 as a consultant to Rogers Cablesystems. Ernie organized a cable access production group called Metro 7 in 1983 and, once the first cable acess studio was built (on SE Foster Rd.) in 1983, began producing shows. In the Spring of 1984, he produced a one-hour show featuring interactivity on the cable system and starring Bud Clark, then a candidate for Portland Mayor. Ernie won a national prize for that show; and Bud won the Mayor’s seat. Ernie would go on to produce a variety of cable access shows, from the Bud Clark Show to steam railroad shows to the Ben Linder Memorial Telethon to The Rubber Chicken Show to his show Nicaragua by Nicaraguans. Ernie was on the Mount Hood Cable Regulatory Commission and is now on the Portland Cable Access Board.

     Kathleen and Chris and Ernie traveled to Europe in the Fall of 1985--from Paris to St. Emilion to Nice to the Italian Riviera to Florence, then to Lyons and Paris and to London. We spent a month all told, and had a great time, cruising the old country in a Super Cinc. Then in the Spring of 1986, we packed up again and went to Nicaragua--Kathleen for a week and Chris and myself for 2 weeks. While there we interviewed (on camera) government, church, media and business people on the situation in Nicaragua at a time when our country was actively trying to undermine the government there. It was informative, at times dangerous, and always exciting. I used the video tapes produced there in a series of monthly shows on cable access tv which won a national award for community producers.
     
     Lynn’s parents died within a few months of each other in a retirement home in Cleveland, in 1982. Lynn’s Dad was an ardent collector and restorer of (now valuable) antiques as well as a skilled craftsman. Her Mom was a social worker. Her influence is still felt around here when Lynn wonders out loud why she does this or why she feels the way she does. Ernie’s Mom died in October of 1993, after a brief stay in a nursing home in Burlingame, CA. She was a woman before her time, a feminist when no one knew what that meant yet. I’m sure she would have been surprised to know that her son, Quintan, would follow her in death in just a few short years--in 1996 of a massive heart attack.

     Ernie’s first daughter, Kathleen, married Tick Houk on July 3, 1989 in Los Angeles, and they bought a house in Culver City the same year. They have had two children: Ernie Houk, born Feb. 27, 1992 in Santa Monica Hospital; and Carly Houk, born Aug. 4, 1994 in the same hospital. Kathleen worked until 1992 at TGA Enterprises in Los Angeles, as their Office Manager. She now works full time raising the children. Tick Houk designs integrated circuits for International Rectifier Corporation in Los Angeles.

     Ernie’s second daughter, Christine, graduated from University High School in Los Angeles in 1981, went on to the University of California at Santa Cruz for two years, then on to the University at Berkeley where she graduated with a degree in Resource Economics in 1985. After a few years in Los Angeles, Christine moved to Portland, and has established herself as a successful realtor here.

     Lynn’s son, Dirk Bergstrom, graduated from Cleveland High School in Portland in the Spring of 1985 and went on to graduate with a chemistry degree 4 years later from Williams College in Massachusetts. He worked for a time in the San Francisco area as a chemist, and now has a job doing on-line data and literature searches for Stanford Research Institute.

     Lynn and Ernie had their 25th wedding anniversary party on July 27. They served champagne and chocolate, to everyone’s delight.

     Elizabeth was born at Ashland, Saunders Co., Nebraska, on 27 September 1935. She was the daughter of Orlo Roy Bonner and Mable Lissie Rea. Elizabeth died on 20 August 1942 at St. Mary's Hospital at Northplatte, Lincoln Co., NE. She died of polio.. Her body was interred at Northplatte, Lincoln Co., NE.

     Joseph was born at Iola, Allen Co., Kansas, on 12 January 1911. He was the son of Joseph G. Walker. He married Audra Belle Rea at Emporia, Kansas, on 12 April 1934.¹ Joseph was divorced from Audra Belle Rea in 1945. Joseph was divorced from Audra Belle Rea in 1945. Joseph was divorced from Audra Belle Rea in 1945.

     Joseph was born at Orlando, Orange Co., Florida, on 23 November 1919. He was the son of Andrew J. Opaleskia and Mary Floric. He married Audra Belle Rea at Orlando, Orange Co., Florida, on 23 September 1950. No issue from this marriage..

     He married Mary Floric.

     She married Andrew J. Opaleskia.
     Her married name was Opaleskia.

     Marie was born at God Bout, Quebec, Canada, on 8 September 1927. She was the daughter of Henri Labrie. She married Max Arnold Rea at St. Edward, Boone Co., Nebraska, on 20 July 1953. Marie was divorced from Max Arnold Rea at Denver, Denver Co., Colorado, before 1963.
     As of 20 July 1953,her married name was Rea.

     He married Myrtle Good.

     She married George Meeks.
     Her married name was Meeks.

     Edward was born on 11 November 1926. He married Peggy Jean Rea on 15 October 1948.

     William was born at Childers, Nowata Co., Oklahoma, on 23 February 1920. He was the son of Fred Sharp and Mable Stevenson. He married Patricia Lee Bennett at Nowata, Nowata Co., Oklahoma, on 22 June 1947.

     She married Fred Sharp.

     Verle was born on 16 January 1913.¹ He was the son of Walter Fowler and (?) (?). He married Maudeanna Wilkinson. Verle died in 1968 at Tulsa, OK.¹

     She married Verle Walter Fowler.
     Her married name was Fowler.

     Clarence was born at Delaware, Nowata Co., Oklahoma, on 29 March 1930. He was the son of Fred Capps and Oueena M. Paige.

     He married Oueena M. Paige.

     She married Fred Capps.
     Her married name was Capps.

     Earl was born at Bingham, NY, on 4 July 1930. He was the son of Leroy William Van Housen and Freda Louise Conrad.

     Leigh was born at Boyd, Lac Qui Parle Co., Minnesota, on 31 July 1926.¹ He was the son of Edward David Quist and Amanda Marie Uglem.

     Edward was born at Madison, MN, on 15 August 1888.¹ He married Amanda Marie Uglem at St. Paul, Ramsey Co., MN, on 28 February 1920.¹ Edward died on 23 August 1947 at Ten Mile Lake Township, Lac Que Parle, MN.¹

     Amanda was born at Madison, Lac Que Parle, MN, on 9 May 1894.¹ She was the daughter of John H. Uglem and Anna Swenson. She married Edward David Quist at St. Paul, Ramsey Co., MN, on 28 February 1920.¹
     As of 28 February 1920,her married name was Quist.

     He married Freda Louise Conrad.

     She married Leroy William Van Housen.
     Her married name was Van Housen.

     He married Beatrice Jennings.

     She married Harmon O. Barter.
     Her married name was Barter.

     Adalaide was born at Oriskany Falls, Oneida Co., New York, on 29 August 1854. She was the daughter of Isaac George Brader Sr and Joanna Burke. Adalaide died on 6 September 1854.

     Margaret was born. She married Isaac George Brader Sr in January 1872.
     As of January 1872,her married name was Brader. In the Supreme Court records in Madison, Wisconsin is a lawsuit where Margaret McCord Brader sued the heirs of Isaac George Brader estate on behalf of Sovina Brader, the daughter of her and Isaac George. Isaac George Brader Jr., his sister Elizabeth Ash, and his brother Alfred Brader testified at the trial. Ther was a will and the court held it to be valid. It left $500 each to Elizabeth Ash, Mary Ball Allen, and Alice Strand. It left $200 to Eliza Brader Rea, $10 to Sovsinva Brader. The rest and property was left to the boys share andshare alike but they were to provide for Margaret as long as she lived. Isaac G. Brader, Jr. was the executor.

     Sovina was born in September 1872. He was the son of Isaac George Brader Sr and Margaret McCord.
     Faily tradition is that she married a Mr. Allen who became Governor of Kansas. However the wife's name is also given as Margaret. See Margaret Brader.

     Abi was born in 1873. She was the daughter of Henry Jason Ash and Elizabeth (Lib) Brader. Abi died circa 1963.
     Her married name was Riding. She resided at Neligh, NE.

     Lucinda was born at NJ in 1854. LDS Ancestral File has an entry that Lucinda was born 1847. No evidence cited. However on the 1870 U.S. Census she is age 16 which would be a birth year of 1854..¹ She was the daughter of Furman Housel and Margaret Carpenter.¹ She married Alfred Cyrus Brader at Springdale, Dane Co., WI, on 10 July 1870. At the time of their marriage Alfred was a merchant in Springdale, Dane Co., WI. Lucinda was living with her parents on their farm in Springdale [in the 1870 U.S. Census the family appears as Firmin Hansel]..¹ Lucinda died in 1882. Her body was interred at Mt. Vernon, Dane Co., WI.
     As of July 1872,her married name was Brader.

     William was born in June 1875.² He was the son of Alfred Cyrus Brader and Lucinda Housel. William died in 1912.

     George Brader was the son of Alfred Cyrus Brader and Lucinda Housel.
     George was listed as the head of a family on the 1790 Census at Mt. Vernon, Dane Co., WI.

     Ellen was born at Dane Co., WI, on 26 January 1859. She married Alfred Cyrus Brader after 1882. Ellen died in 1950. Her body was interred at Mt. Vernon, Dane Co., WI.
     As of after 1882,her married name was Brader.

     Alpha was born in 1890. She was the daughter of Alfred Cyrus Brader and Ellen Rhoda Chandler.
     Her married name was Marshall. Lived in Hartland, Wisonsin.

     Lillian was born at Springdale, Dane Co., WI, on 20 July 1883. She was the daughter of Alfred Cyrus Brader and Ellen Rhoda Chandler.
     Her married name was Moore.

     Hazel was born in 1898. She was the daughter of Alfred Cyrus Brader and Ellen Rhoda Chandler. Hazel died in 1908.

     He married Lena Holvorson.

     She married Erick O. Strand.
     Her married name was Strand.

     Ella was born. She was the daughter of Ole E. Strand and Alice Brader.

     She married Ole E. Strand on 23 April 1870. Nettie died on 27 October 1879.
     As of 23 April 1870,her married name was Strand.

     Isaac was born in 1878. He was the son of Thomas Richard Brader and Jessie (?).

     Margaret Brader was the daughter of Thomas Richard Brader and Jessie (?). She married an unknown person .

     Harriett Brader was the daughter of Thomas Richard Brader and Jessie (?).
     Harriett and Harold were twins. Died in infancy. Buried in unmarked graves.

     Harold Brader was the son of Thomas Richard Brader and Jessie (?).

     Mary Ash was the daughter of Henry Jason Ash and Elizabeth (Lib) Brader.
     Her married name was Pauley.

     (?) was born in 1885. She married Earl Brader.
     Her married name was Brader.