Frieda Bonner Bagwell passed away peacefully in hospice on Sunday, September 8th, 2024, in Mobile, Alabama. She was 97 years old. Born on December 2, 1926, Frieda was the oldest of three sisters.
Frieda was a beloved mother, grandmother, aunt, great-grandmother, and friend. She was also a wife, and one important aspect of her life was her marriage for almost 79 years to her husband Bob, who died on November 15, 2022. A beautiful drum majorette in high school, she fell in love with Bob and married him on her seventeenth birthday--shortly before he shipped out on a destroyer to do his part in World War II.
They later had two children, Larry and Tim, both of whom had deep relationships with Frieda during her whole life. She supported her loved ones through thick and thin, overcoming incidents like her four-year-old son getting hit by a car and her husband getting burned in an electrical fire.
One of her defining characteristics was her sense of adventure and independence. Frieda's sense of adventure led her to move with her family to Aruba, and later live in Papua New Guinea and Las Vegas. In Aruba, a friend brought her a pair of newborn South American parakeets, which she raised by hand and taught to talk, calling them "sweetie" and "baby." When the family moved back from Aruba, Frieda smuggled her beloved birds into the country in her handbag.
Years later, in Papua New Guinea, she wanted to see the top of the mountain where the copper mine Bob worked at was located, but the only way was to hitch a helicopter ride and then wait at the top for several hours to be picked up. Despite the cold and wet, it became one of her most memorable life experiences.
Frieda had grown up without much, and she was always determined to look out for others. A dedicated member of the Church of Christ, she embraced the values of love, faith, kindness, and tolerance. She very rarely complained or asked for help, despite her asthma and not knowing for most of her life that she suffered from Celiac disease and an abnormally small esophagus. Even in the final years of her life, Frieda's independence and stubbornness saw her selling the house she had lived in for 50 years and making her own arrangements for the next phase of her life.
Frieda loved crab claws, crossword puzzles, and the Atlanta Braves. She made a mean fried okra and cornbread dressing and passed along unique family recipes like chess cake. She instilled her sense of duty, intelligence, independence, and adventure in her six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. She is survived by them, her two sons, and her younger sisters, Jean and Yvonne as well as her nieces Marilyn and Alice and her nephew Neal.
We will all miss her dearly and are grateful for the love and gifts she brought to us with her life well lived.
Her family will honor her memory will a funeral service on Tuesday September 17th at the Mausoleum Chapel in Mobile Memorial Gardens Cemetery. Her family will receive friends at Mobile Memorial Gardens Funeral Home on Tuesday September 17th beginning at 12:00pm.
December 2, 1926 — September 8, 2024
Interment will be Tuesday, September 17, 2024, 2:00pm at Mobile Memorial Gardens Cemetery 6100 Three Notch Rd. Mobile, AL 36619
