Bonita “Bonny” Diane Eisenbise

Bonita Diane Eisenbise, “Bonny,” 73, of Baltimore, Maryland, passed away on Saturday, 9/5/2026 at home in Baltimore, surrounded by family, chosen and blood.

Born on November 2, 1952, in Wenatchee, Washington, Bonny was the third daughter of Russell and Bernetta Eisenbise. She grew up happily in the apple orchards of Washington State before her family moved to Kansas and then Elizabethtown, PA. Bonny’s active, engaged youth--track and field, cross country, drama--and summers spent on a farm prefigured her future activism and love for nature.

It was during a study abroad program in Switzerland that Bonny met her future husband, Peter Hinderberger, with whom she would spend the rest of her life. Hungering for more travel (a trait she would never abandon and definitely passed on to her children), she returned to Switzerland during college and taught English while she waited for Peter to finish medical school. The pair then traveled the world together for a year. It was during this stretch abroad that she first visited India, a place of profound importance to her and to which she would take each of her children. It was also during this trip that Bonny got herself arrested helping Cambodian refugees smuggle resources across the Thai border. Travel sparked her lifelong commitment to fighting for the underdog.

Though Bonny would live in and visit Switzerland throughout her life, she and Peter made their home in Baltimore, where he established a medical practice and they raised their 3 children. Bonny became notorious for passionate environmental advocacy--she wanted to preserve the world for her grandchildren--and keeping a home that was always open to boarders, exchange students, her children’s companions, and the occasional short-term runaway. She made friends wherever she went and across every conceivable boundary, and she welcomed people into her family with grace and humor. She had strong convictions about everything, and she asserted them fiercely and regularly. Bonny is irreplaceable.

She is survived by her husband, Dr. Peter Hinderberger; her sisters, Cindy Sweigart, Becky Hostetler, and Claire Eisenbise; her children, Sophie, Sarah, and Elias Hinderberger; and her grandchildren, Luca and Mila Ceccarello.