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Bunny Mother looks back at 1960s

Local author tells true story of sister at her Playboy Club gig

In 1966, Alyce Bonura was a single mother of two boys who had escaped an abusive marriage and was struggling to make ends meet when she happened across an opportunity for a well-paying job with benefits.

The position: Bunny Mother at the Chicago Playboy Club, where she would be responsible for overseeing the schedules, training and personnel issues of the young Bunnies.

Despite her reservations, Bonura took the job; the pay was too good to pass up. That was the beginning of a roller-coaster journey that gave her a first-hand look into the glamour and objectification, the scintillation and drama of Playboy. It also sent her down a pathway that ultimately led to financial independence, education and the confidence to make it as a professional business woman.

Bonura’s story is the subject of Mother Rabbit, a collaborative memoir written by Durango author – and Bonura’s younger sister – Tekla Dennison Miller.

Along with giving a peek into the world of Playboy, Mother Rabbit offers a detailed account of what it was like to be a working woman in an era when cultural changes were shifting the role of women in society. It was a time when many women were caught between the injustice of old-fashioned mores and the promises of the feminist movement. Miller hopes the book is a wake-up call.

“I want readers to understand the struggle that women have had to make, and that while we have it better, the struggle is not over – that we need to keep going,” Miller said. “My fear is the eroding away of the things that we fought so hard to achieve.”

Miller and Bonura will be at Maria’s Bookshop at 6:30 p.m. today for a book talk and signing. The women will bring historic photos and some props – including an authentic Bunny costume – to share with the crowd.

Miller is a former Michigan prison warden who has written four other books, including her memoir The Warden Wore Pink. Mother Rabbit came about, she said, when her sister approached with a request to write her story. Turns out, Bonura had hung on to much of the material from her days at Playboy. She had two giant boxes filled with memorabilia – company memos, newsletters and personal mail – along with 800 pages of detailed journals.

“It took me nearly two years to read and sort through,” Miller said.

It also enabled her to reconstruct her sister’s biography in minute detail. And it gave her new insight into the challenges Bonura – who was also Miller’s legal guardian – endured as a single mother. Money was tight, she was in love with a married man and she feared that others were jockeying for her job. At work, she was constantly putting out fires; Bunnies were beaten up by their boyfriends, wanted illegal abortions for unplanned pregnancies, overdosed on drugs and fought with one another.

“I knew she was always struggling, but I didn’t know the extent of her struggles,” Miller said of Bonura.

After Miller had sifted through all of the documents, it took her another year to write what she describes as the hardest book project she’s ever taken on. She originally wrote the book in third person but revised it to a first-person account after gathering feedback. She then got Mother Rabbit published through Oak Tree Press after entering, and winning, a memoir contest.

The result is a book that gives an interesting history lesson on women’s role in society. Anecdotes of Bunnies being demeaned or used by Playboy Club members and judged by their looks are enough to make a reader appalled at the way things used to be. The impossibly tight Bunny corsets, spike heels and the concept of a men’s club filled with leggy young women created a tableau of unchecked sexism. And yet, to confuse matters, the pay and benefits were better than women would find at most other occupations.

Mother Rabbit can get mired down in the tedium of Bonura’s day to day; details of meals she ate or inconsequential squabbles in the office can make the book drag at times. Still, Mother Rabbit lays out a compelling personal story and a lesson for today’s women: Don’t take for granted the battles that have been fought.

“The fear is there that we can end up close to being back there,” Miller said.

kklingsporn@durangoherald.com

If you go

A book talk and signing with Mother Rabbit author Tekla Dennison Miller and her sister, Alyce Bonura, will take place at 6:30 p.m. today at Maria’s Bookshop, 960 Main Ave.



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