Good-Bye, Miss Alma

BONHAM, MAIDEN

Posted By: Marilyn Holmes
Date: 9/9/2016 at 15:28:35

The Montezuma (IA) Republican
March 15, 2000

GOOD-BYE, MISS ALMA

Prominent Montezuma business woman,
civic leader Alma Bonham dies at 96

By JEAN BUSTOS
Staff writer

Alma Fern Maiden Bonham died at 5:30 a.m. Tuesday, March 7, 2000. Long-time residents say at 96, she wasn't just the oldest business person in the county, she was its premier heartbeat and historian.

The widow of equally prominent Montezuma lawyer and abstractor, Hoyt Bonham who died in 1984, Mrs. Bonham belonged to the Daughters of the American Revolution since 1942. She was a 60-year member of Midway Grange and a past Worthy Matron of the Order of Eastern Star.

She was a pillar of Montezuma's United Methodist Church--formerly the Episcopal-Methodist Church. There she was treasurer for 17 years. And there, her husband served as head of the reconstruction committee after the building's destruction by fire decades ago.

When 84-year-old Hoyt died, 19 pallbearers escorted his coffin from the church to the Masonic-IOOF Cemetery where his wife was buried beside him Sunday afternoon, March 19 under gray afternoon skies.

She was also a longtime member and treasurer of the Iowa Society of Mayflower Descendants.

The society recently planted a tree in her honor in front of Montezuma's Carnegie public library.

("You know we were very lucky to get that library; it was the second-to-the-last library in the country the Carnegies endowed," she said more than once.)

Her husband served on the library board for 40 years.

The little sapling was important to her for another reason, as well. Though she wasn't an outdoorswoman, she loved trees and flowers, in particular lilacs and African violets. Two years ago, she drew The Republican's attention to the existence in town of an unusual species, a gingko tree, which has been spreading its branches in Montezuma since the 30s.

Since 1943 a member of the Montezuma Women's Study Club, Bonham was also a leader in the Poweshiek Historical and Genealogical Society, where she last served as chaplain.

In 1988, she was parade marshal of the Montezuma Fourth of July celebration. And several years ago, "Bonham Trail" was established on the southeast edge of Montezuma, near Sunnyview Square, a retirement complex which her husband helped build. Growing alongside down trail are 27 plant species indigenous to Iowa.

The day before she was buried, the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution paid tribute to her, deciding she would be most honored by conducting--not canceling--the meeting.

"I've never missed a DAR meeting yet and I don't intend to now," she said some two years ago when she first entered Montezuma Nursing and Rehabilitation Center.

She didn't miss the meeting then; friend Gordon Alexander saw to it. But a poignant note Saturday was that Bonham was scheduled to present the group's next program April 8, Memories of Our Montezuma DAR daughters.

Born to Charles A. and Lula Maiden in Winfield Aug. 26, 1903, Alma was the eldest of two sisters, Olga and Jane and their brother, Raymond. Her mother, the former Lula Boleaux, was from Washington, Iowa. Her father, Charles A. Maiden, was a Winfield resident.

Mrs. Bonham's friend for some 50 years, Alice Underwood, recalled how Bonham had fun once at a lawyer's expense with her father's last name.

"Alma was on jury duty," Underwood said. "During the selection, on of the lawyers asked what her maiden name was. She told him and he said, 'Yes, but what was your MAIDEN name?' And she told him again and he asked her again and this went on for some time until the court reporter finally said, 'Tom, her maiden name IS Maiden."

In May 1903, the Maiden family moved to Marshalltown where Bonham's father worked for a grain elevator and her mother, for a doctor. She attended Marshalltown Community Schools.

When school was out, the family spent many a summer day visiting grandparents in Winfield and Washington. According to friends and local biographers, it was a close and happy family.