Bonnie Cessna

Bonnie passed away at home surrounded by loved ones after a brief battle with cancer. She was born in West Line, Missouri, to Albert and Lovel (Brown) Sampson. Her early childhood was spent on the family farm in Cass County before her father’s job at the Ford plant moved from south Kansas City to Claycomo. She started school in Cleveland, MO. The Sampson family moved to Claycomo in 1952 - when she was 11 - where she attended Munger School and graduated from North Kansas City High School in the Class of 1959.

Bonnie thoroughly enjoyed raising her two children, Bryan and Tamara Cessna. She was active in many aspects of their childhood, including volunteering at school, watching marching band shows, tumbling and dancing performances, concerts, musicals and plays, Scouting, and the band program at Winnetonka High School for both children. Bonnie considered her children to be her greatest accomplishment and she was immeasurably proud of them as well as all they achieved.

As Bryan and Tamara got older, she began working for the North Kansas City School District. She spent most of that time as the school secretary at Ravenwood Elementary and retired in 2005, after 24 years in a labor of love & challenges associated with an elementary school.

Bonnie enjoyed all children, but she especially loved being a grandmother and going to even more school events, music programs, plays and musicals, many more band concerts and contests, marching band shows, and years of Boy Scouting events in support of Trevor and Brandon. She took every opportunity to spend time with them.

Bonnie enjoyed traveling with family and explored many parts of the United States and several other countries, from sea to shining sea and beyond. During her life, she traveled up and down the East Coast, Pacific Northwest, Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, Colorado, as well as numerous summer trips to the Ozarks and lakes in Southern Missouri. She thoroughly enjoyed family cruises to Hawaii, Alaska, and New England. She also visited Mexico, Canada, England, Scotland, and Wales, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany, thoroughly enjoying the beauty everywhere she went. She stayed active - while in Hawaii, she even hiked to the top of Diamond Head at age 70!

Bonnie was always a country girl at heart. She enjoyed nature and wildlife, “playing in the dirt”, walking around flowerbeds and feeding the birds, with an obsession of collecting pretty rocks and seashells, flower-starts and trees, and beautiful jewelry as reminders of her trips. She was known for taking a ‘thorough inventory’ of flower nurseries, antique malls, markets and shops!

Bonnie loved music, crossword puzzles, researching genealogy, keeping up with what was going on in the world news, and catching up with family and friends any chance she got. She was always ready to go on day trips, explore small towns, country music concerts, dinner theater, and go for a drive out to the country with her close friend, Kenny Hord. The pair could often be found at McDonald’s enjoying coffee with her “McFriends”.

Gardening, cooking, volunteering with her quickie quilters group, spending time with her family and long-time friends brought Bonnie great pleasure. Her house was full of plants, her yard was full of flowers, and her vegetable garden was full of tomatoes!

Bonnie will be remembered for her quick wit, her dedication to friends and family, and her famous pineapple cream pies!

She was preceded in death by her parents. Bonnie is survived by her children and their spouses, Bryan Cessna (Ida) and Tamara Cessna (James Reynolds), grandchildren, Trevor Cessna and Brandon Cessna (Josephine), sister Lana Banning (Lance), brothers Richard Sampson, Glen Sampson (Dixie), Stanley Sampson (Jeannie), many nieces and nephews as well as extended family members and companion, Kenny Hord.

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Service Details

Visitation will be held at Park Lawn Funeral Home – Northland Chapel on Tuesday, October 21, 2025, at 11:00 a.m. followed by the funeral service at 12:30. Interment will follow at White Chapel Memorial Gardens.

Bonnie loved flowers, but believed they belonged in nature for all to enjoy; so in lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to paypal.me/BonnieCessnaMemorial, which will be given to create educational opportunities within organizations she supported, such as the Winnetonka Band and Boy Scouts of America.