May 20, 1921 - September 8, 2024
In loving memory ~
Lesley Moyra Bonner (nee Collison), 103, of Cobble Hill, died on Sunday, September 8, 2024, in Cowichan District Hospital.
She was born on May 20, 1921, to Herbert T. Collison and Mary Elizabeth (Mollie) Collison in Vancouver, BC. She was an only child. At the age of 3, Lesley and her parents moved to Skidegate in Haida Gwaii, where her father was the Imperial Oil agent. There she spent her idyllic childhood, playing in the forest and swimming in the ocean. The family then moved to Mill Bay on Vancouver Island where Lesley attended Cobble Hill High School (now Evergreen School on Watson Avenue). A classmate she knew there was Norman Bonner.
After high school, she worked at the children's TB solarium in Mill Bay at what is now Brentwood College before attending a year at the University of Saskatchewan studying home economics. World War II interrupted any plans and she and a friend decided to join the Royal Canadian Air Force. After training at Boundary Bay, she was shipped overseas on the ocean liner Mauritania carrying 5,000 Canadian troops to England. On the voyage she was surprised to bump into a former Cobble Hill classmate: Flight Lieutenant Norman Bonner. Lesley was stationed in London and Norm would come to visit her whenever he had leave from his assignments in South Africa and Egypt. A year after the war's end, they were married in St. John's Anglican Church in Cobble Hill.
Lesley spent the next 25 years or so raising three children in Cobble Hill. When the nest was empty in the 1970s she volunteered as a family counselor at Family Life in Duncan. She and Norm spent their retirement travelling, playing golf and square dancing.
Lesley is survived by her sons: Neil and Ray; daughter Lynne; granddaughter Alexandra and daughter-in-law Connie. She is predeceased by her husband Norman K. Bonner.
There will be a private Interment Ceremony at St. John's Anglican Church in Cobble Hill.
Memorials or donations may be made to the Cowichan District Hospital Foundation.
To express condolences, share memories and photos, please visit: www.sandsduncan.ca
