Bonnie Linder

Lavonne Joan "Bonnie" Linder (March 15, 1927 – November 19, 2020) was a resident of Hartley, Iowa, who was the subject of a viral video in 2020. Her fame began after her daughter, Judy Zimmerman, posted a video of Linder waving to children on a school bus after they had arranged to stop in front of her house to wish her a happy birthday. The event occurred on March 13, two days before her 93rd birthday.

Early life Lavonne Joan Harms was born in 1927, in Sheldon, Iowa, to Henry L. and Lillian Minnie Harms. She attended Archer Consolidated School, in Archer, Iowa, and graduated in 1944.

Viral video In March 2020, Linder's daughter, Judy Zimmerman, arranged to have a bus from a local school stop in front of her house, in Hartley, Iowa, and to have the children on board wish Linder a happy birthday. Since the beginning of the school year, Linder had either waved from the window of her home, or, in favorable weather, stood on her porch every weekday morning to wave to the bus as it passed by, becoming known as "Grandma on the Farm". The bus driver would honk in response; as such, the driver wanted to do something to mark her birthday.

Linder's routine of waving to the bus was substantially interrupted shortly afterwards, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which resulted in schools in the Hartley–Melvin–Sanborn Community School District closing, but she was able to greet the mail person and the driver of the cattle-feed delivery wagon, as she had been doing. eight months after the viral video was released.