Weston Leonard Bonney

Weston L. Bonney, of Portland, Maine, passed away on October 27, 2023, at the Gosnell Memorial Hospice House in Scarborough, Maine. Son of Olive Jones Bonney and Leonard Weston Bonney, Weston was born in Lewiston on September 9, 1925.

He graduated from Leavitt Institute in Turner in 1943. After attending the University of Maine during the summer, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy. He served on destroyers during the Second World War, participating in the invasion of southern France in 1944 and later serving in the Pacific theater. Upon his discharge, he returned to Maine where he married Elaine Gilbert of Turner and enrolled at Bates College in Lewiston, graduating in 1950.

Weston spent his career as a banker in Maine and Massachusetts, working at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and at commercial banks in Boston, Cape Anne, Lawrence, Augusta and Portland, before retiring as Chief Executive Officer of Peoples’ Heritage Bank in 1991. During those years he also continued his education at The American Institute of Banking at Rutgers University in New Jersey and at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.

He was a believer in serving his community and especially during his long retirement gave his time to many different non-profit organizations, including The Nature Conservancy, The First Parish in Portland and The John T. Gorman Foundation among others. His volunteer work stretched from mentoring

Portland High School students and serving in the local soup kitchen, to travelling to formerly Communist nations in Europe and Asia to advise their banking industries as they adapted to operating in a market economy. He also served for 11 years on the Maine State Board of Education, having been appointed by then Governor Angus King, and for 25 years on the Board of Trustees of Bates College.

Weston loved being outdoors, and in his free time he enjoyed hiking, gardening, skiing and “messing about in boats”. He felt a special connection to Mount Katahdin and summited it 13 times, the final time at the age of 83. He was also a member of the Appalachian Mountain Club’s Four Thousand Footer Club, having completed all of the 4000+ foot peaks in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. His neighbors still remember the gardens he created around his home in Georgetown, Maine. Those gardens were his great delight and vocation for more than 40 years. He also enjoyed skiing throughout his life. His children still remember the early morning awakenings and harrowing drives through the darkness to the ski slopes of Maine; Weston always wanted to get his money’s worth out of his day pass. No one was surprised when he continued skiing until age 89 after the ‘free over age 80’ pass was introduced.

Weston loved to travel and he and Elaine visited all the world’s continents except Antarctica together. He kept a map of the world above his desk and put a pin in every country he went to. In total, he visited 98 countries over the course of his long life, starting with being shipped to North Africa at age 18 when he was in the U.S. Navy and ending with a trip to the Netherlands when he was 91 to participate in a family event.

Weston is survived by his wife of 77 years, Elaine Gilbert Bonney, their four children Melody Bonney Barlow and her partner Vaughn Keller, Merrilee Bonney, Michael Weston Bonney and his wife Alison Grott Bonney, and Melissa Bonney Kane and her husband James Francis Kane, III. He also leaves nine grandchildren, ten great-grandchildren and many nieces, nephews and cousins. He was predeceased by his parents, a brother and two sisters, a grandson and a son-in-law.

A memorial service will be held at First Parish in Portland, 425 Congress Street, on Saturday, November 4, 2023 at 10:30 a.m. A private graveside service will be held at the Turner Village Cemetery.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in his memory to one of two scholarship programs that support Maine college students in his honor:

The Weston and Elaine Bonney Scholarship Fund at Bates College

(payable to Bates College at The Office of College Advancement, Bates College, 2 Andrews Road, Lewiston, Maine 04247)

Or

The Bonney Scholars Program at the Mitchell Institute

(payable to The Mitchell Institute, 75 Washington Ave, Suite 2E, Portland Maine 04101).

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.jonesrichandbarnes.com for the Bonney family.