Sara A. Bonnett, M.D—1897-1971

In the death of Dr. Sara Bonnett on June 4th, we have lost one of our most beloved and valued leaders. Throughout the more than forty years of her membership in the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and the American Psychoanalytic Association, she had been steadfastly and actively interested in the development of our profession and the education of students and graduates. With her integrity, sense of fairness, her personal warmth, and a clear-minded capacity for organization, she became an outstanding and progressive educational administrator as well as teacher. A quality of indefatigability made her seem almost indestructable. Her loss is difficult to realize. Those who knew her well were aware that her tireless efforts to realize her ideals had grown out of a long and early period of struggling with adversity and personal handicaps which were surmounted with courage and great energy.

In her personal life she showed most of all a warmth and an outreaching toward people, with a tempered and not intrusive sympathy. At times she could be hurt by a betrayal of trust, but was tolerant and did not hold resentments. Her sensitivity and pleasure in sensuous experiences gave many facets to her life—a delight in her household, in her garden, in cooking, in entertaining, and in travelling. She lived more lives in one than most of us achieve.

When her husband, Dr. Earl Bonnett, retired they left New York to live in Ridgefield, Connecticut. With his death eight years ago, many of us who had regarded her as an urban person hoped that she would return to New York. But she had already rooted herself in the country, established a practice, and become a member of the Western New England Psychoanalytic Society. She was as attached to country life as she had been to the city, and her children and grandchildren were at hand. Gradually her home became a weekend gathering place for old friends who brought younger ones with them. It was often a meeting place for col