David L Bonnette

David Bonnette, 77, of Brookfield, passed peacefully on May 5^th, 2020 following complications from COVID-19.  David was born in Worcester, MA to the late Leonard Bonnette and Shirley (Elliott) Bonnette.  He leaves his wife of 43 years, Sandra (Thiel) Bonnette of Brookfield; his daughter, Deborah Bonnette of Leicester; his son Daniel Bonnette and his wife, Patricia of Worcester; a sister, Betty Plouffe of Worcester; a brother, Richard Bonnette and his wife Susan of Charlton; four grandchildren, Daniel and Megan Veroneau of Leicester, and Ryan and Ashley Bonnette of Worcester; his ex-wife Yvette (Richard) O’Brien of Leicester; along with many nieces, nephews and great nieces and nephews and so many amazing friends whom he loved dearly.  David was predeceased by a sister, Judy LaFontaine, who left us on February 14^th of this year.

David was born in Worcester and graduated from South High School before entering the Air Force in 1961, where he served as a jet engine mechanic at Dow Air Force Base in Bangor, Maine.  He later graduated from Quinsigamond Community College and Worcester State College, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration.  David had a wide and varied career as a self-employed builder, a draftsman at Goddard Engineering, Jamesbury and Warner-Swasey Corporations, a high school teacher at Project Coffee in Oxford, a college professor at Quinsigamond Community College in Worcester before ultimately becoming a computer technician for the United States Postal Service where he worked for more than 15 years.  He moved to Ripley, WV in 1994 and lived there until late last year in a peaceful, hilltop country home that he and his wife Sandi loved dearly.

David was a talented and gifted man.  He was a guy who literally could design and build a house, create a beautiful set of custom-built cabinets, turn an intricately hand-crafted bowl, tear the engine out of a car and rebuild it, build a kit-car from the wheels up or pull apart a computer and rebuild that as well.  He loved his “Turning Tuesday” club where he and his friends would spend hours designing and building beautiful woodworking projects.  He had a garage that would be the envy of any mechanic you have ever known and a woodworking shop that was equal to it.  If there was a project that needed to be done, David was always the first to volunteer, a true and reliable friend. 

David's services will take place at a later date and he will be buried in a beautiful cemetery along the banks of the Ohio River in Ravenswood, WV.  However, the Bonnette family plans to have a large gathering in celebration of the lives of David and his sister Judy on a future date, to be determined in conjunction with state safety laws.

In lieu of flowers, donations in his memory may be made to the Salvation Army.