November 21, 1946 - August 3, 2018
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF ELAINE BONDONNO
Elaine Greenock McMahan Bondonno was born in New Jersey on November 21, 1946. Her father, Robert, had immigrated from Mother well, Scotland, when he was six years of age. Elaine’s mother, Virginia Weir, was born in Hudson, New Jersey. When Elaine was eight, her father, who worked for the Gardner Denver company, was assigned to Maracaibo, Venezuela. After four years, the family moved on to Santiago, Chile. The family returned to the Gardner Denver headquarters in Illinois while Elaine was in her last year of high school. Elaine attended the University of Kansas, and four years later she graduated with honors as a “Hilltopper.”
After graduation she married Robert McMahan, and they moved to Troy, New York, where she took a job as head of the language department at the Emma Willard School for Young Women. A few years later she entered the University of Albany Law School. Having moved to California and passing the California bar exam, she then joined the firm of Berry & Berry in Oakland, quickly becoming a partner. In the late 1970s, a significant number of asbestos injury cases were filed in the San Francisco Bay Area courts. Elaine took the lead in fashioning an expedited program to obtain medical records and evaluate individual plaintiff’s medical conditions. That program is still in existence and is still being handled by the successor firm of Berry & Berry.
By the early 1980s, Elaine and Robert McMahan divorced. For several years Elaine and Franklin Bondonno worked together as attorneys representing co-defendant companies without knowing that both were divorced. One evening in 1983, upon leaving the San Francisco Superior Court, Franklin noticed that Elaine was sitting on the bench outside the city hall where the homeless normally camped. He walked up and asked her if she was okay, and it was clear she wasn’t. Not knowing what to do, he asked her to dinner. Thus began a romance which lasted until August 3, 2018. On Elaine’s 40th birthday, November 21, 1986, she and Franklin announced their engagement. They were married on September 11, 1987. The day after Christmas in 1990, Evan Stewart Bondonno, otherwise known as “Evan from Heaven,” arrived, and has continued to bring joy ever since. Elaine enjoyed motherhood, organized play groups, connected with some of her best friends, and became increasingly interested in art. Over the years she developed creative art programs for both the Los Gatos and Campbell United Methodist Churches. However, the need to offer something outside the church precincts led her to start the Art and Spirit program, first at the Elmwood Correctional Facility, and later at the County Main Jail. Over the years, the number of volunteers going into the correctional facilities grew, and most recently, on June 24th, the Los Gatos United Methodist Church hosted the opening of the present art show.
Elaine is preceded in death by her siblings, brother David, and sister Laurie.
The Art and Spirit Ministry focuses on collaborative transformational art pieces designed to connect the inmates with their better angels. A Celebration of Elaine’s Life will be held at 3pm on August 31, 2018 at the Los Gatos United Methodist Church, 111 Church St, Los Gatos, CA 95030. Elaine will be laid to rest at a private service at Cherokee Memorial Park at Harney Lane and Hwy 99 in Lodi, CA.
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