Bonnie Bedford Park
Melding history and experience through the fates and fortunes of her patriotic family
Part of Park City since the 70’s
When New Jersey born Bonnie Ann Bedford picked Park City, Utah, as a place to settle in the 1970s no one expected the old silver mining boomtown, turned ski town, would evolve to become a 2002 Winter Olympics host city and, later, a world class destination resort. Fresh out of grad school, her first full-time job with the Park City Chamber of Commerce (then housed in the former Sheriff’s office on Historic Main Street) placed her in a non-profit position to convince visiting travel agents and press writers “This is the Place!” It was a tough sell, especially with Utah’s weird liquor laws. But it’s how she met her WWII history buff husband of forty years, Pete Park. Did his forebears own the city? No.
Fast forward. With two young sons underfoot, Bonnie took the reins of a startup recreation district born out of the family laundry room. With the good-hearted enthusiasm of character Leslie Knope (actress Amy Poehler) in NBC’s seven-season sitcom Parks and Rec, she publicly faced off with NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard), PITBYs (Put It In Their Back Yard), and DUDEs (Developers Under Delusions of Entitlement) to prevail in the development of community parks, non-motorized trails, recreation facilities, and the preservation of open space. Along that arduous path, Park City Rotary Club named her Professional Citizen of the Year (2003), Utah Parks and Recreation Association presented their “Lifetime Achievement Award” (2013), and the University of Utah Department of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism honored her with their “Outstanding Alumnus Award” (2019).
With age came new aspirations. As she began the painstaking process of transcribing family letters, hundreds of them, Bonnie exposed a WWII era story begging to be told. That’s when life took a hairpin turn and came to a screeching halt. She became a caregiver. Not for her aging parents, Robin and Buster Bedford (they’d already passed), but for her firstborn son, then twenty-four years old. Along one of Utah’s Scenic By-ways, out of cell range, he rode shotgun as a passenger in a Honda Civic head on into a pickup truck. By way of air ambulance, he landed on the helipad of a trauma one hospital. His survival proved to be nothing short of a miracle. In her Christmas letter that year, Bonnie wrote “the angels are among us.” Conceivably those angels were the very family members who, like it or not, are cast as main characters in her books.
Before anyone looked to Internet memes and life coaches for empowerment, Robin and Buster fashioned Bonnie’s future with words like this: “You can do anything you put your mind to!” Proving they were right, she helped her son help himself to get back on his feet and, with this WWII saga embedded in her head, kept writing.
Bonnie is the published author of Brides of 1941 (2018), and its sequel, Six Weeks For Boat Mail (2022). She is presently at work on a third book with more stories delivered in the context of momentous events in U.S. History. Set in the final two years of WWII, Lt. Buster gives his all in the liberation of the Philippines while Robin’s feisty independent spirit shines through on America’s Homefront.
This legacy project is derived from the heart and soul of industrious, church-going middle-class people who identified as Republican in a time when “civil discourse” in party politics sought to better our country, our democracy, and our national security.
Book One
Book Two
