One day decades ago, while working in marketing on the 13th floor of a skyscraper in downtown Dallas, Donnie Lightfoot looked out the window to see her husband, Bonnie, scaling the side of the tower.
Bonnie, an electrician, had a hand in lighting a number of the city’s buildings, including the now-iconic green Bank of America Plaza. Sometimes he would manage a team of electricians, and sometimes he climbed the buildings himself.
Donnie is terrified of heights, so she wasn’t thrilled to see her longtime love hanging off the side of a tower during work. But, she trusted him. He was just as good at his job as he was at being a husband and father.
Bonnie, 89, and Donnie, 88, had been married for about 70 years when Bonnie died of complications from COVID-19 in December 2020. They raised four kids together and doted on a gaggle of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
“We were grade school friends and sweethearts in high school and we had a good life together,” Donnie said.
Starting a family
They weren’t supposed to get married before they graduated high school, but Bonnie and Donnie decided they couldn’t wait. They kept it a secret from everyone but one teacher so that they didn’t get in trouble with their school administration.
After graduation, the couple set out to start their own family. Their first two children were born prematurely and died shortly after birth. Their next four kids, also born prematurely, were luckily healthy. And so began their busy lives.
While Bonnie was an electrician by trade, he worked several jobs in the early years to help support his family. He worked second jobs at a drive-in theater and a dairy company.
“He was just a hard worker,” Donnie said. “He never complained, that’s one thing he didn’t ever do.”
And in his free time, Bonnie took up home improvement projects.
“We had a home that was a three bedroom, two bath home with a den and living area,” said Bonnie and Donnie’s son, Joe. “They were wanting to either move or they wanted to add on to the back of the house with an extra two bedrooms and a bath.”
And Bonnie did just that by adding a second story to the house by himself.
When he found broken pieces of furniture on the side of the road, he’d take them home and repurpose them. His granddaughter, Ashley Reynolds, said she still has a wooden desk he rebuilt and painted for her.
Her grandfather, who she called Papaw, always found little ways to show his affection, Reynolds said.
“Even until the year he passed, if I came over, he would try to sneak me money away from my grandmother, like it was a secret,” She said. “Or he would disappear for a little while and when I [went to leave from visiting] he would have washed my car and filled it up or put Dr Peppers in my back seat or paper towels.”
In the ICU
The last time Donnie spoke to her husband was before he was taken into the intensive care unit. His oxygen levels were dropping and his doctors were worried.
Bonnie spent the next two weeks intubated in the ICU. Every day, members of the Lightfoot family would call his nurses, who would hold a phone up to him. They hoped that by talking to him he would wake up. He never did.
Because of COVID, the Lightfoots didn’t hold a service. The family didn’t want anyone to potentially catch the virus at the funeral and have to go through what they went through, Joe said.
Instead, on the one-year anniversary of his death, Bonnie’s family published a short obituary in The Dallas Morning News.
“His children and grandchildren will continue to pass down stories of his giving nature and goofy jokes,” the note read. “We are so lucky to have had you as our Papaw.”
