Bonnie Bebe Shaddock

Bonnie “Bebe” Shaddock, a longtime resident of Laguna Woods, died in Laguna Niguel on February 18 from complications of Parkinson’s Disease.

Bonnie was born in 1933 to Benjamin and Florence Bondurant in St. Louis, Missouri, and spent her early years in Kirkwood, a St. Louis suburb. From a young age, Bonnie sought a life of adventure. At a time when few women graduated from college, Bonnie earned a bachelor’s degree from Monmouth College in Monmouth, Illinois, where she was a member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority. And she earned a master’s degree in education from the University of Missouri.

In the early 1960s, Bonnie, along with her two young children and high school sweetheart Donald Wiese, left the Midwest for Southern California. She first worked in Santa Ana as a classroom teacher for learning-disabled students. As luck would have it, neighbor who lived across the street in the same Santa Ana subdivision as Bonnie was head of the school district’s instructional television program. He persuaded Bonnie to try out as the program’s science teacher. Bonnie found her calling in instructional television. She went on to hold instructional-television positions with Los Angeles County, the California state Department of Education, and KCET. She was also a co-founder of Oliver/Asselin Educational TV Production Company, which developed educational programming.

Bonnie was active in cultural, philanthropic, and educational affairs, especially after moving to Laguna Woods. She was passionate about her college, Monmouth, where she served for many years on the Board of Trustees, and was inducted into the Monmouth Hall of Achievement, and Saddleback Hospital, where she was a board member and chair of the Saddleback Memorial Foundation. Bonnie was also a lay leader for Laguna Country Methodist Church.

Bonnie was a lifelong advocate for women and champion of young women’s educational ambitions. She remained an active supporter of Kappa Kappa Gamma throughout her life, sponsoring many young women to the sorority, including her granddaughter Erin. When her daughter-in-law Anne wanted to seek an advanced degrees, Bonnie jumped into action, providing childcare for Anne’s two young daughters.

Bonnie’s life was also filled with romance. Her second marriage was to Raymond Oliver, and her third was to Roland Shaddock, whom she met in the airport in Peoria, Illinois, on her way to a meeting of the Monmouth College Board of Trustees. Following Shad’s death, she found love again, with Russ Smith, whom she met in church. Russ brought Bonnie much joy late in life with his zest for dancing and socializing.

Bonnie loved her family deeply. She had a brother, James Bondurant, who predeceased her and whose wife Kathryn survives him, and two children, Kurt Wiese, married to Anne, of Laguna Beach, California, and Jill Reid, married to Scott, of Laguna Beach and Raleigh, North Carolina.

Bonnie was a devoted and loving grandmother, who took great delight in her five granddaughters—no grandsons!— Evelyn Wiese, married to Greg Rosalsky, of Tahoe City, California; Hollis Wiese Kelly, married to Ryan Kelly of Los Angeles, California; Erin Reid Lawler, married to Ryan Lawler, of Cary, North Carolina; Lauren Reid of Asheville, North Carolina; and Ellison Reid of Chicago, Illinois. A consistent high point of Bonnie’s year was hosting Camp Bonnie, where each of her granddaughters and their mothers played games for the weekend and stayed up too late eating too many snacks and telling stories. When Bonnie decided that a granddaughter was ready, she took each of them on an international trip of their choosing: Evelyn to Paris, Hollis to Italy, Erin to the Galapagos Islands, Lauren to India. She joked that by the time Ellie, the youngest was ready, Bonnie would be too old to go anywhere other than Bakersfield. (Bonnie took Ellie to St. Petersburg, Russia.)

Towards the end of her life, Bonnie found one of her many soul mates, her caregiver Hanna Ivanovic. The family is profoundly grateful to Hanna for the kindness, care and friendship that she provided to Bonnie and Russ at a particularly difficult time of their lives.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made in Bebe's memory to Monmouth College or the Saddleback Memorial Foundation.