Bonnie Speyer Seeley
Bonnie died of cancer at home on Thanksgiving Day. She was born Friday, October 13, 1939 in Salt Lake City to Carol Lindsay Speyer and Fredrick H. Speyer.
Bonnie's early years were spent enjoying skiing at Alta where her father managed the ski lifts and the Alta Lodge. As a teen-ager she enjoyed running the rapids on the Colorado River. Her talents for ski racing gradually developed as she grew up with the Junior Alpine Racing program. She attended the University of Utah where she was captain of the women's ski team and was nationally ranked. These skiing abilities later carried forward to coaching Special Olympics teams in Massachusetts during the 1980's.
The majority of her adult life was spent in the Boston area, where she became the first woman to acquire a seat on the Boston Stock Exchange as President of H & Co. From 1969-1974 she worked at Brandies University where she was the top administrator of the National Institute of Mental Health-funded Systems Technology Project which also received grants from Dept. of Health and Human Services. She earned a Master's Degree in Business form the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as the second woman to be appointed as an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow. She was the first woman to be appointed a Charles Stark Draper Fellow and wrote her thesis on the U.S. Navy's Trident missile system development management. She was active with public housing issues both locally and nationally and managed a 600 unit low-income housing complex in Leominster, MA.
She loved sailing and enjoyed trips up and down the New England coast on the Odyssey, an ocean racing sailboat. She also enjoyed travel in Europe and skiing in the Alps. A particular highlight was the 5-week trip to China in 1993 where she attended the Province University and toured the country with her mother three months before "Coke's" death. She edited family and fund-raising cookbooks and Elizabethan-era recipes for the modern kitchen. Her passion was a gourmet meal, preferably one she had prepared.
Bonnie is survived by her husband of five years, de Benneville K. Seeley, Jr. her brother Robert (Sixes, OR), a daughter Elizabeth Marie (Tempe, AZ), and three stepchildren: Nathaniel K. Seeley (Brandon, VT), Ellen Frances Seeley-Rios (St. George, UT), and Morris Clothier Seeley (Salt Lake City, UT).
A memorial service will be held Tuesday, Nov. 30, at 1 p.m. at Evans & Early Mortuary, 574 East 100 South, Salt Lake City.
The family requests that in lieu of flowers donations may be made to either the Arthritis Foundation, 448 East 400 South, SLC, UT 84111, or Hospice of IHC, 2250 South 1300 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84119.
Published in The Deseret News, (Salt Lake City, UT) - November 29, 1999
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