Frederick Willis Bonner was born in 1907 in Subic, Philippines to Frederick Douglass Bonner and Charlotte Drucilla Stokes Bonner. He moved to the United States in 1914, living in New Bedford, Massachusetts and in New Haven. His father was also a Yale graduate (Yale College, 1901) and his uncle, Robert H. Bonner, attended the Yale School of Art. The Baltimore newspaper, the Afro-American, reported in 1929 that he was the first son of a Black graduate of Yale to earn a degree. Bonner was married to Mabel D. Bonner and was a teacher. He died in 1999.
Image citation: Yale College Class of 1929 class book, Yale University Library