Sergio Bonotto ’48

Sergio was born in Torino, Italy. He and his parents came to the United States in 1940 as war refugees, and he graduated from Princeton High School.

He was an Army machine gunner on the Western Front near the war’s end and was wounded by German mortar fire. He came home to graduate from Princeton in 1949 and then from Columbia, with degrees in chemistry.

He joined Union Carbide, doing fundamental research in ethylene polymers. Then he moved into research and development management for the company, first in New York City and then for four years in São Paulo, Brazil. He noted in our 25th yearbook about Brazil, “It was the highlight of my career, a very meaningful personal experience. I wish it had happened earlier.”

He had a variety of lifelong avocations. A commercial and fine artist in drawing, prints, and watercolors, he exhibited in Italy and in the United States. He was an avid skier and was on the national ski patrol. He was also a sailor, and he authored short stories.

Sergio died April 11, 2018, in Princeton, at age 92. He and his late wife, Mary, who met on a Vermont ski slope, were married for 50 years. He is survived by two sons, Michael and Robert, and by extended family in Italy.