James Gordon Bonine
Aug. 15, 1874-March 3, 1934
Niles Daily Star, Saturday, March 3, 1934, page 1, col. 1, cont. page 2, col. 1, microfilm Niles District Library
Dr. J. Gordon Bonine Dies of Heart Attack
CASSOPOLIS DOCTOR SUCCUMBS SUDDENLY AT LOCAL HOSPITAL
Former State Senator Had Anticipated Returning Home in Few Days
Dr. J. Gordon Bonine, Cassopolis, former Republican state senator and until two months ago a member of the state liquor control commission, died at 7:20 o'clock this morning in Pawating hospital, Niles, from a heart attack.
Dr. Bonine entered the hospital here on February 21, and since has been under the care of Dr. Clarence C. Gillette. His condition was pronounced critical a few days later by Dr. John Slaymaker, specialist instructor from the Rush medical school Chicago, who was called for a consultation. The heart trouble was complicated at the time with an attack of acute indigestion.
DEATH COMES SUDDENLY
Death came unexpectedly, however, this morning while breakfast was being prepared for the patient. He had hoped to leave the hospital within a few days. In fact, he had planned last Monday to go home some time this week, but had been pursuaded[sic] by his physicians against the move. His body was taken to the Connelly funeral home in Cassopolis. He was born in Niles in the early eighties but had resided in Cassopolis and practiced medicine there for nearly 30 years.
He was a cousin of Dr. Fred N. Bonine, famous eye specialist of Niles. Through inheritance and investments he became one of the wealthiest men in Cass county, being rated a millionaire. He was the owner of the famous Elk park farm, comprising 1,500 acres near Vandalia, where he kept of herd of elk that drew many tourists at all times of the year.
Mrs. Bonine left Cassopolis Friday for Marion, O., to visit a daughter who was to return with her to the family home, 329 East State street, Cassopolis. After receiving word of his death they started back today.
Dr. Bonine entered politics in 1930 when he announced himself a candidate in the primary election for Republican nomination for state senator in the Berrien-Cass senatorial district. He defeated E.W. Moore, a former publisher of the Herald-Press in St. Joseph, for the nomination. He won the senatorship in the general election Nov. 8, 1930, defeating William F. Morley, St. Joseph, the Democratic nominee. He was the Republican candidate again in 1932 but was defeated by Senator Leon D. Case, Watervliet publisher, who had previously been senator.
ON LIQUOR COMMISSION
Last year when 3.2. beer became legal, Gov. W.A. Comstock appointed form Senator Bonine to the state Liquor control board. When the board was reduced from 17 to five members in December, Bonine was among those dropped.
Dr. Bonine was considering being a candidate for congressman this year.
Shortly before entering the hospital here he had gone to Benton Harbor for a conference with John J. Sterling, mayor of that city, who was killed last week in an airplane accident in Utah.
Sterling himself had considered being a candidate again for the Republican nomination this year. Dr. Bonine told these facts facts last Monday to Fred C. Franz, three times former sheriff of Berrien county, who went to the hospital to see Dr. Bonine for advice concerning his work as a district agent for the liquor control board.
Dr. Bonine told Franz that Sterling had told him he would not seek the nomination if Dr. Bonine intended to seek ti. Sterling was the center of a Republican factional row in Benton Harbor, opposing City Manager George Barnard, who is a former state senator and is being urged by friends to seek Republican nomination for congress.
Dr. Bonine was married in Niles in the late nineties to Miss Margaret Gates, daughter of a prominent Niles family. Her father, Eli Gates, was for many years a member of the Gates Brothers grocery store.
Surviving besides the widow are four adult children:
Elwood Bonine, Cassopolis, manager of the Elk park farm; Mrs. Gerald Fox, Ames, Iowa; Mrs. Clyde Morrison, Marion, Ohio, and James Gordon Bonine Jr., Engineering student at Purdue university.
Funeral arrangements are being held in abeyance pending arrival at the Cassopolis home of Mrs. Bonine and the absent son and daughters. It is understood that the funeral will be held in Cassopolis and that burial will be in Silverbrook cemetery, Niles.
Dr. Bonine was a graduate of the University of Michigan, Rush Medical college and other medical schools. He was a member ...[illegible]. .. in Dowagiac. His parents were descendants of Quakers.
He also was a director of the First National Bank, Cassopolis.
Niles Daily Star, Monday, March 5, 1934, page 1, col. 4, cont. page 2, col. 1, microfilm Niles District Library
MASONS TO CONDUCT FUNERAL FOR BONINE
Ritual Services on Wednesday in Cassopolis Temple with Burial in Niles
Funeral services for Dr. J. Gordon Bonine, who died Saturday in Pawating hospital where he had been under treatment for 10 days for heart disease, will be held at 2:30 o'clock Wednesday afternoon in the masonic temple, Cassopolis. Burial will be in Silverbrook cemetery in Niles.
Backus lodge, No. 55, F. & A. M., Cassopolis, will conduct the ritual service. Dr. Bonine was a member of the Medinah lodge in Chicago. He also was a member of the Dowagiac lodge of Elks.
The body now is at the home in Cassopolis and may be viewed there until the funeral Wednesday. Arrangements for the service were completed following the return Saturday of Mrs. Bonine from Marion, O., where she had gone Friday to be with a daughter Mrs. Clyde Morrison.
Mrs. Bonine had spent a part of Friday at the hospital here with the patient and left for Marion O., with her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Elwood Bonine, Cassopolis, to visit the daughter, Mrs. Morrison. All three returned the BConine home in Cassopolis late Saturday.
Dr. Bonine was the son of Isaac B. and Alice Wilkinson Bonine, early Cass county settlers. He attended school in Vandalia and later was graduated from the Niles high school. He studied law and medicine at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and later attended Rush Medical college, Chicago, and the Physicians' and Surgeons college at the University of Illinois.
After completing his medical studies Dr. Bonine began practice in Chicago. He moved to Cassopolis in 1905 and continued medical practice there until his recent illness.
Dr. Bonine took pride in his vast land holdings between Cassopolis and Vandalia, and particularly in maintenance of the elk park, a timbered pasturage tract of several hundred acres and a show place in Cass county. He maintained a herd of purebred Guernsey cows and about 200 heard of stock cattle, besides many sheep, horses and other stock.
His grandfather, James F. Bonine, settled in Penn township in the early 1840's and cleared and cultivated large tracts of land. The homestead was a station for the underground railway of pre-Civil war days.