Bonnie Dean Vanderpool

Bonnie Dean Vanderpool – a devoted wife, mother, grandmother, great grandmother, daughter, sister and friend – passed peacefully April 24, 2026, surrounded by her family in Boise. She was 82.

Bonnie was born March 25, 1944, in Nampa, Idaho, to Richard “Dick” and Evelyn Shelton. She grew up in the foothills of Boise with her older brother, Barry, and younger brother, Don. She was a beautiful, spunky girl with long, blonde curls, until her hair turned brown at 9 or 10. It later changed to bright orange, thanks to a botched bleach job in her teens. When her dad ordered her to dye it back to brown, it turned a sickly green.

Bonnie’s hair still had a tinge of green when she transferred to Fruitland High School for her sophomore year. That’s where she met Robert, a quiet boy with movie-star looks. The stunning new girl stole his heart, and they were married on April 1, 1960, in Fruitland. They always enjoyed the April Fools’ Day laughs, but their storybook romance and 66-year marriage were no joke. They built a home in 1965 on four acres outside New Plymouth, where they lived for 60 years and raised four children – Rick, Stephanie, Jacque and Joe.

Bonnie was a devoted mother, and Robert was a talented body-and-paint man. She worked as a bank teller and grocery clerk, among other jobs, but her true calling was as a doting mother, grandmother and great grandmother. Her closest friend was Valita Johnson, with whom she reconnected decades after they met as sophomores at FHS.

Bonnie loved pizza, Arctic Circle cheeseburgers, buttered popcorn at the Pix Theatre in Ontario, strawberry milk shakes and Italian sodas. She devoured romance novels, had a secret crush on Fabio, and a lifelong obsession with true-crime stories, “Perry Mason” reruns and Court TV. She enjoyed sitting next to her living-room window and surfing the web and social media on her iPad. Bonnie never said no to Robert’s adventures, including three 1,000-mile roundtrip rides to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota in the 1980s on the back of his red, custom-built Harley-Davidson.

She was preceded in death by her father, mother, sons Joe in 1988 and Rick (wife Sandee) in 2025, brother Barry (Pat) Shelton, sister Narissa Jane Shelton and granddaughter Randi Vanderpool. She is survived by her husband Robert, daughters Stephanie (Bart) Hult and Jacque (David) Vanderpool, brother Don Shelton, grandchildren Sadi (Jay) Calhoun, Travis (Kassi) Vanderpool, Shana Kittrell and Alex (Tristan) Gruell, and great grandchildren Abby Calhoun, Ava Kittrell and Alexa Kittrell.

No services will be held at her request. Please think of Bonnie the next time you bite into a cheeseburger or sip a strawberry shake, and remember Bonnie and Robert’s long, beautiful life together every April Fools’ Day.

Arrangements are under the direction of Bowman Funeral Parlor of Garden City.