PEOPLE & PLACES · TURLOCK
The Bonander name is easy to spot on a car lot. One of its less obvious places in Turlock history is a dentist’s office—where a young man met the woman he would marry, connecting the Bonanders, Woods Furniture and a longtime mayor’s family in one ordinary appointment.
The story of the Bonanders runs through practical local businesses and the people who worked in them. Cars are the most visible part. A few surviving records reveal a wider neighborhood.
Updated 2026.
A postwar business—and a name that changed
Bonander’s truck business dates its service to the Valley to 1946. A reproduced dealership history describes Emory Bonander returning from World War II and selling rubber tractor tires before expanding into Nash and Studebaker automobiles.
The automobile business later left an unusually precise paper trail. A California New Motor Vehicle Board hearing record identifies an earlier corporate name, Wenell Pontiac, Inc., incorporated on July 11, 1963. Its name became Bonander Pontiac, Inc. on April 20, 1964, following the death of prior owner E. W. Wenell.
The company adopted the name Bonander Auto, Truck & Trailer, Inc. in 2015, after Pontiac production had ended. The same record traces Merced Truck & Trailer’s incorporation as a subsidiary in 1992 and Bonander’s first Western Star dealer agreement in 1994. Names on signs changed as manufacturers and the business changed; the family name remained.
Those dates also explain why a company can describe its roots as 1946 while a corporate filing starts in 1963. One date marks the business’s earlier activity. The other belongs to a particular corporation. They answer different questions.
The dental appointment that connected three families
In its June 2022 newsletter, the McHenry Museum & Historical Society recorded a story told by members of the Woods family. Darryl Woods had returned to Turlock after graduating from UC Berkeley in 1958. At Dr. Gordon Bonander’s dental office, he met assistant Gloria Gimle, a Hilmar native and niece of longtime Turlock mayor Enoch Christoffersen.
Darryl’s mother Elsa called Gordon’s wife Mary Lou to ask whether Gloria was single. Darryl returned to the office and asked Gloria what people did for fun in town. She suggested the movies and bowling. He invited her bowling; she beat him. They married on December 26, 1959.
Another account of Gordon’s office, the obituary of Janet Nyman Lamb, adds the working life behind the story. Janet joined him after graduating from Livingston High School in 1960. She worked as a dental assistant and office manager for 25 years, and taught in Modesto Junior College’s dental-assisting program from 1968 to 1970. A local practice was also a place to learn a profession and pass it on.
More than a dealership surname
A 2024 family obituary for Paul Edwin Bonander identifies his parents as Joe and Esther Bonander and lists brothers Gerald, Emory, Gordon and Merrill, along with his sisters. Paul was born in Turlock in 1933 and later lived in Fresno. It establishes the family connections behind names that appear in quite different parts of the local record.
The dealership continues to identify Don Bonander as owner and Matt Bonander as general manager. The GMC location remains at 231 South Center Street, while the truck operation lists 4520 North Golden State Boulevard and locations in Merced and Bakersfield. The geography describes both sides of the business: a downtown address and a commercial operation serving a broader stretch of the Valley.
One small measure of the name’s familiarity is the Turlock Journal’s 2021 Readers’ Choice results, which named Bonander in the auto-body category. It is a dated readers’ vote, but it captures a local association that goes beyond buying a vehicle: repairs, service and the work people return for.
A downtown lot tells a different story
In April 2014, Turlock City News reported a proposed McDonald’s on part of the Bonander car-lot property near Center and Marshall streets and Golden State Boulevard. A city planner confirmed the proposal, but its standard design did not fit downtown’s architectural requirements.
The proposal brought the dealership property into a debate over downtown’s future: a new use would have to meet the historic district’s design standards.
Continue with the Crowell family’s farming and civic history, return to the History of Turlock, or use the Turlock Guide to explore downtown today.
