Barbara ("Bonnie") S. Allen's Obituary
Barbara S. Allen, “Bonnie” to her friends and family, died at peace on March 5th, 2018 with loved ones at her side after a brief fight with cancer and ensuing complications.
Bonnie was born on September 5th, 1946, in San Francisco, CA, the youngest of four children of Dr. Edwin R. Schottstaedt and Mrs. Vera Schottstaedt (née Dobroudjanska). Her two older brothers Richard and Edwin Jr. preceded her in death. Bonnie adored her father and always spoke fondly of him. When her father remarried, she formed a strong bond with his second wife, Donna, and embraced their sons Karl and Kurt Schottstaedt as her beloved brothers. She is survived by them as well as by her sister Vera Peterson, of Sandy, OR. She is also survived by her son Miller, his wife Tracy and their two children – Amelia and Mason – all of Oakland; and her son Aden, his wife Kimberly and their two children – Aden Matthew and Samuel James – all of Austin.
Bonnie graduated from Katherine Delmar Burke Highschool in 1963 and attended the University of California at Berkeley where she studied Spanish and Italian and earned a B.A. and an M.A. in Romance Languages.
Bonnie married Lee S. Allen in 1968 at St. Stephen’s Church in San Francisco. They met at the home of his cousins, one of whom, LaVerne Carter-Pitts went on to become Bonnie’s closest and dearest friend and godmother to both her sons.
Bonnie loved her sons dearly and always made sure they had whatever they needed to succeed. She was their mom, their good friend, and always their biggest supporter. She always had a supportive word to say, never a criticism.
Bonnie loved her grandchildren dearly and always looked forward to spending time with them, whether it was picking Amelia and Mason up from school or having them over for sleepovers. She enjoyed attending their school events and performances, especially on special occasions and holidays such as their birthdays, Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. She also loved traveling to Austin to visit Aden Matthew and Samuel James.
To say that Bonnie was a huge sports fan is a gross understatement. Her love of baseball started at the early age of 13. She and her best friend would take the streetcar to the newly built Candlestick Park to watch the recently transplanted San Francisco Giants.
After moving across the bay to attend Cal, and later settling in Oakland, Bonnie converted her fandom to one of strict loyalty to the Cal Bears, and Oakland’s three major franchises: the A’s, the Raiders, and the Warriors. Bonnie loved to attend games, especially A’s games, and was an avid watcher of all three teams.
Bonnie fostered a love of sports in her sons as well. She would pitch batting practice to Aden in front of our house on a regular basis. She almost never missed one of her sons’ games, attending elementary, middle school, and high school games in baseball, basketball, football and lacrosse.
Professionally, Bonnie worked as a bookkeeper and payroll specialist for several mechanical and general contractors. She started her own freelance bookkeeping business in the mid 1980’s. Later, she joined the staff of one of her larger clients and worked there until retirement. After retirement, she still enjoyed working part time as a bookkeeper and kept up with the latest software. Bonnie took the dual responsibilities of a “working mother” seriously and worked to make life easier for herself and other working moms by creating the first afterschool care program at St. Lawrence O’Toole Catholic School through her position as school board president.
Bonnie had a great sense of humor, usually, dry and slightly sarcastic. She loved jokes and sent them and collected them to and from her friends. She had a very active mind and loved word puzzles and word games. She routinely crushed opponents in WordsWithFriends or old school Scrabble or Boggle. She loved reading and literature and seemed to have a limitless vocabulary. It was rare to find a word that she could not both define and spell correctly. She was a stickler for grammar and her sons learned their predicate nominative from their objective at home long before it came up in school.
Mostly, Bonnie should be remembered for her generosity and kindness. She cared dearly about all humans and loved all animals (not just her cats). She donated her time and money to a wide number of causes, most recently volunteering regularly at the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church Food Distribution near her home.
Bonnie lived an exemplary life of caring and giving of herself to others and we might all hope to emulate her in that way. She will be missed dearly by her family and friends.
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