Marita Bonner, 1898-1971

Marita Bonner, writer, musician, and teacher was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts June 16, 1898 to Joseph Andrew and Mary Anne (Noel) Bonner. She attended Brookline High School and then Radcliffe College where she concentrated in English and Comparative Literature. A gifted musician (referred to in the Radcliffe class poem as "1922's Beethoven"), she won college song competitions for the "Heathen Song" (1919) and "The China Lady" (1922). She belonged to the Music Club, Mandolin Club, and also to the German and prestigious English Club. MB was admitted to Charles T. Copeland's writing seminar, and one of her sketches "Dandelion Season" was selected to be read annually to the Radcliffe classes. She also contributed to the Harvard Review, the Boston Post, and The Sagamore while at high school. As a Radcliffe senior she taught at the Cambridge High School, and was graduated with an A.B. in 1922. After graduation she taught at the Bluefield Colored Institute, Bluefield, Virginia (1922-1924) and at Armstrong High School (1924-31). In 1930 she married William Almy Occomy, an accountant, and they moved to Chicago. They had three children (William Almy, Warwick Gale, and Marita Joyce.) MB died in Chicago on December 6, 1971.

MB published plays, essays and short fiction in The Crisis and Opportunity . Among her literary experiments were one-act modernist plays "The Purple Flower" (1928) and "Exit, an Illusion" (1929). Two prize-winning essays were "On Being Young-A Woman-and Colored" (1925) and "Drab Rambles" (1927) She won the Wanamaker music prize for Negro Music in 1927, and continued to publish short fiction until 1941. During 1944-1945 and 1950-1963, MB taught handicapped children in Chicago schools.