Frank Joe Bruno

Frank Joe Bruno passed away at home in Upland, California on May 11, 2025. He was predeceased by his parents Joe Bruno and Josephine Bruno, neé Lavella, and his wife Jeanne Bruno. Frank is survived by his younger brother, Joseph Bruno, his son Franklin, and his daughter-in-law Bree Benton. He will be remembered by family, friends, and colleagues as a warm and loving husband, father, and son, and as a gifted and enthusiastic author, songwriter, and educator.

Frank was born in Glendale, California on November 21, 1930. His parents emigrated from Southern Italy in the early 1920s, and met and married in Los Angeles; Frank was their first child. The family settled in Bloomington, where his parents grew grapes and boysenberries at the Bruno Ranch on Jurupa Avenue. Frank graduated from Colton High School, took classes at San Bernardino Community College, and transferred to UCLA, where he earned a B.A. in Psychology. He served in the U.S. Air Force from 1953-56, primarily as a basic training instructor at Parks Air Force Base near Pleasanton, California, earning the rank of Staff Sergeant. He married Jeanne DiTommaso in 1953, shortly after entering the service; they remained married for 65 years, until Jeanne’s death in 2018. After his discharge, they relocated to the Inland Empire, near their parents, and lived in Upland for over 50 years. Franklin, their only child, was born in 1968.

In the late 1950s, Frank worked as a psychiatric nurse, social worker, and insurance claims adjuster, and managed a retail wine-tasting room for his father-in-law Frank DiTommaso; with Jeanne, he also ran a successful mail-order business preparing applicants for the California real estate exam. In 1960, he returned to psychology, and to higher education, earning a master’s degree and then a doctorate from Claremont Graduate School. He worked briefly in private practice, and began teaching psychology at San Bernardino Valley College in 1963 while still completing his doctorate. He remained affiliated with SBVC for nearly five decades, serving as department chair and on the Academic Senate, earning multiple teaching awards, and retiring at the rank of Full Professor in 2005. As emeritus faculty, he continued teaching part-time for several years after retirement; at various times, he also taught summer and night classes, and extension courses at UC Riverside and UC Irvine.

Alongside his teaching career, Frank was a prolific author. Beginning with The Story of Psychology in 1971, he published eighteen non-fiction books, including the weight-control books Think Yourself Thin and Born to Be Slim, the textbooks Behavior and Life and Adjustment and Growth: Seven Pathways; The Family Mental Health Encyclopedia; Psychological Symptoms; and a series of six self-help handbooks, Life’s Little Keys. His books were translated into Spanish, French, Hebrew, and Hanzi (Chinese). A voracious reader of literature and popular fiction, with favorite authors from Raymond Chandler and Jim Thompson to Tolstoy, Thomas Hardy, and Somerset Maugham, he also published ten novels through Amazon Digital Services, ranging from science fiction (Twinsouls) and mystery (A Kiss to Build a Death On) to historical (Young Freud) and semi-autobiographical fictions (My Life in a Madhouse). His last completed book, Bruno and Son (2016), documents his early family memories and business partnership with his father growing, selling, and delivering wholesale produce in the 1940s.

Finally, Frank was a life-long pianist and songwriter, composing words and music to hundreds if not thousands of original songs since adolescence, including the musicals Martin Eden (based on Jack London’s autobiographical novel) and Scratchy (based on Stephen Crane’s “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky”), diet- and weight-control-themed “food songs” and parodies, and a series of annual Christmas songs sung at family holiday gatherings, including “Our Little Christmas Tree,” “Bah! Humbug,” and “Christmas Eve.” He continued to write complete song lyrics until the last weeks of his life.

We invite you to join Frank’s family and loved ones for a rosary and visitation on the evening of Monday, June 2, and a funeral Mass on the morning of Tuesday, June 3, followed by an interment and reception; details below.