Bonnie Scott Kremer

On Saturday, January 8, 2022, Bonnie Scott Kremer, loving wife, fiercely devoted mother of two, and proud grandmother of nine went home to be with the Lord at the age of 80. We will all miss Bonnie’s beautiful smile that lit up the room, her quirky sense of humor, and her contagious laugh.

Bonnie Adele Scott was born in Coral Gables, Florida, on February 27, 1941, to Mary and Logan Scott. Bonnie’s childhood, as the third of five spirited Scott daughters (Pauline, Midge, Bonnie, Dicksy, and Laurie), was a constant adventure. The family moved frequently, as her dad was a pilot for Pan American. Bonnie and her sisters lived in Rio de Janeiro, Los Altos, California, and Honolulu, Hawaii, where Bonnie graduated from Roosevelt High School. One of her favorite childhood memories was a year-long trip around the world when she and her sisters were taught by a tutor.

Always a social butterfly and curious learner, Bonnie attended college at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon and joined Alpha Chi Omega sorority. Her love of reading led her to major in English.

By far the most impactful event of her time at Willamette was meeting her lifelong buddy and love of her life, Peter Kremer, during a psychology course her sophomore year. They married on June 4, 1962, the day after their college graduation. The young couple moved to their first home, an apartment in Palo Alto, where Peter attended the Stanford Graduate School of Business. During their graduate school years, Bonnie and Peter made lifelong friends who have continued to stay close half a century after their time together in Palo Alto.

Just before Peter graduated, Bonnie and Peter started their family with the arrival of the first of their two daughters, Leslie. Daughter Audrey joined the family three years later after they had relocated to Southern California.

Bonnie dedicated her life to making a wonderful, loving home for her husband and daughters.

An avid reader, she read to her girls daily and grew in them a love of reading that is a legacy continued to the next generation in her grandchildren, two of whom are English teachers! She had many late nights when she simply “couldn’t put down” a novel until the wee hours.

Bonnie was also a talented chef who, as a young wife and mother, cooked her way through the entire Mastering the Art of French Cooking (Julia Child). She was ahead of her time in curating healthy foods like wheat bread, asparagus vinaigrette, and avocado for her family. While her young girls at times longed for Twinkies and Wonder Bread, they are now grateful for the taste for good, healthy foods she instilled in them.

Bonnie excelled in planning and creating fun. She liked throwing dinner parties, singing along to music in the car, dancing, skiing, hiking, and other activities that involved being with her family and friends. She planned exceptionally memorable weddings for both of her daughters at their home in Ketchum, Idaho.

We called Bonnie our “fashionista,” because she always looked fabulous thanks to her gift for style and her enjoyment of shopping. Her daughters and grandchildren enjoyed the stylish gifts “Nani” (what we all call her now) lavished on us all over the years in her (not always effective) attempts to get our style up to her level.

All of Bonnie’s childhood travel contributed to her insatiable, lifelong passion for travel. She and Peter explored the world and Bonnie became an expert at itineraries and planning, much to the enjoyment of her family and friends. It was only during the past decade, due to Peter’s declining health, that her travels were curtailed. She refused to go anywhere without her buddy.

Bonnie enjoyed and was great at many things. Due to all her reading and her great curiosity for travel and learning, many of Bonnie’s favorite pastimes revolved around knowledge and words. She enjoyed doing challenging crossword puzzles and obliterating her family in Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit. More recently, she became an avid Bridge player and ancestry researcher.

Bonnie loved her people very well. But by far Bonnie’s greatest love was Peter. Her final years were spent worrying about and caring for her best friend and lifelong companion.

Everyone who knew Bonnie knew that she was always late, except, it seems, in getting herself to heaven. This time, she was much too early for our liking.

Bonnie was preceded in death by her parents, Mary and Logan. She is survived by her husband of 59 years, Peter, her four sisters, her two daughters and sons-in-law (Leslie and David Seidner and Audrey and Steve Monke), and her nine grandchildren: Madeleine, Veronica, Peter, and Eleanor Seidner, Gretchen (Ruch), Meredith, Charlotte, John, and Owen Monke.

A celebration of Bonnie’s positive impact on all of our lives will be held on February 27, 2022, at 5:00 pm at the Big Canyon Country Club.

Bonnie believed in the power of literacy and education and especially enjoyed supporting innovative educational institutions like The Samueli Academy. In lieu of flowers, contributions in Bonnie’s memory may be made to The Samueli Academy.