Buffy Bonwell Obituary, Death – Joan Steel Bonwell, age 74, of Charleston, West Virginia, died away without any discomfort on Tuesday, April 17, 2012. Mrs. Charles W. Steel and her father, Dr. Charles W. Steel, passed away before she was born. She was a native of Suffolk, Virginia.
After completing her high school education at Suffolk, Joan went on to study at Averett and Mary Washington College in Virginia. Texas was the location where she spent the first four years of her married life with her husband, Lieutenant Robert A. Bonwell, who has been with her for 53 years. The rest of her life was spent in the picturesque city of Charleston, West Virginia, while she spent her summers in Nags Head, North Carolina, and Virginia Beach, Virginia. She attended the Oakwood Baptist Church in Charleston, where she was a member.
She is survived by her devoted husband Robert A. Bonwell, her son Robert A. Bonwell Jr. and his wife Buffy, all of Charleston, West Virginia; her daughter Sandi Lindsley and her husband Robbie, all of Virginia Beach; her sisters Shirley Howell and her husband Don, Charlotte Bigony and her husband Mike, all of Suffolk; her brother-in-law Raymond E. Bonwell Jr. and his wife Lois, both of Toms River.
New Jersey; her sisters-in-law Janey Swain and her husband Mike of Huron, Ohio, and Tanis Rososinski and her husband Stan of McMurray, Pennsylvania; and Joan’s cherished grandchildren Brooke, Blei, Zoey, and Flechyr, as well as a large number of nephews and nieces. At various points in her life, Joan was an active skier, archer, and bridge player to name a few of her hobbies.
She was an extremely generous person who took great pleasure in making huge and tiny gifts to individuals who were in need. She made anonymous gifts to any members of the military or officers of the law who were out in uniform and eating at the same restaurant. It would be a delight for Joan to see the recipients’ facial expressions as they looked around in an attempt to determine who had given them the present.
Joan’s favorite thing to do was to watch her daughter compete in a variety of ice skating contests. She also enjoyed watching her grandkids compete in performances of ballet and tap. Over the course of the final fifteen years of her life, Joan underwent a number of craniotomies, which required her to continually visit the University of Virginia for a variety of procedures, including gamma knife treatments, operations, and monitoring.
Over the course of this time period, Joan maintained a positive mental attitude and did not allow this to prevent her from traveling to various locations around the world. The most recent trip that Joan took to Israel with her husband and two sisters was one that she held in particularly high regard. Joan, who had been a listener of the Charleston Symphony for a very long time, eagerly anticipated each and every concert. She was a huge fan of musicals, and her favorite was Phantom of the Opera. \It was in London, New York, and San Francisco that she witnessed the Phantom.
