The photo above was taken at my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary in September, 2001. From left to right: Tim Bowles, Floyd Bowles (me), Cindy DiGirolamo, Dorothy (our Mom), Fred (our Dad) Dale Iarossi (Cindy’s twin), and our youngest sister Jennifer McClintock. the photo just below was also taken that day.
Mom and Dad (Fred and Dorothy Bowles) on their wedding day, September 1, 1950
Dad, at about 21 years old
Mom in 1948, also at about 21 years old. The story is that she was self conscious about wearing glasses, which Mom did since she was a little girl, so she took them off for this “glamor shot.” Obviously, Dad didn’t care that she was wearing glasses when they met. How can you blame him?
This is Dad at about 80 years old.
This is Mom at about 80 years old.
Dad always called this picture of him and his siblings picking potatoes, “The Joads,” a nod to John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath.” They grew up in a real “hardscrabble” environment in Caribou, Maine. He had two sisters, and two brothers, and all five of them were born before my grandmother, Patience (Haney) Bowles turned 20 years old. My grandfather, Harry Clifford Bowles, was 35 when they married, and she was 15. My Dad was the middle one of the five children. In this photo, taken in the early 1940’s, Dad is second from the left, the one in the hat with a cigar. The oldest of the five was his siter, my Aunt Faye, who is the girl on the right side of the photo. The youngest of the five was my Uncle Norman, dead center in the picture, appearing to sharpen his hoe. My Uncle Tom, the second oldest, was taking the picture. The other three men in the picture are unknown. Viola, born between my Dad and Uncle Norm and named for her maternal grandmother Viola (Thompson) Haney, had died of rickets at the age of three years old.
This is a stock photo of Dad shoveling potatoes into barrels. It was produced by the McCormick corporation, known mostly for it’s spices today, and for it’s spices and tractors back in the mid 20th century. Dad was 14 years old when this was taken.
Dad made a living by working in the factory, but at heart he was a musician. Known as Chuck Owens, a moniker he adopted well before anyone had ever heard of Buck Owens, he had his own live radio program which was broadcast on WARE radio in Ware, Massachusetts.
This is my Mom and her mother, my Mormor. Mom looks to be about three or four years old here, so this picture was probably taken in Warren, PA in about 1931 or so. In those days the family lived in Warren, PA, in the far northwestern part of the state, and my Morfar worked across the state line in Jamestown, NY, about 30 miles away.
Mormor and Morfar (Andre Andersson and Othla (Jensen) Andersson) with Mom in New York. They moved to Queens from Warren, PA and lived there for a while until they went back to Copenhagen when Mom was about nine years old.
Mom and her parents are waiting for a train in Copenhagen. Mom is the one wearing glasses, second from the right. Mormor is just to her right (left on the photo), and Morfar is on Mormor’s right.
This picture of Mom and her parents, along with other photos and letters written in Danish, was in an old suitcase which was found in the attic of our house. The Danes have always been known to be quite “progressive.”
This is my Dad’s mother, Patience (Haney Bowles Richardson) Karlson. “Uncle Karl” was her third husband. They are standing just outside the front porch of their home in Gray, Maine. Grammie was born on May 12, 1908 in Caribou, Maine, and she died at the age of 84 on October 10, 1992.
These are head-shots of my grandfather, Harry Clifford Bowles. He was born in Caribou, Maine on September 26, 1888, and died in Tolland, Connecticut on May 31, 1956, when I was two years old. Tolland was where my Uncle Norman, his youngest son, was living at the time. On that day he was outdoors helping Uncle Norm, when a thunderstorm appeared, so he took shelter inside a chicken coop. The story is told that while he was in the chicken coop he turned on the radio to listen to a Red Sox game. One version of the story had him extending the antenna of the radio out the window in order to get better reception, but I’m not sure of the accuracy of that. Regardless, the structure was hit by lightning, killing him instantly. At the time he had a 1933 Liberty Head silver dollar in his pocket, which is shown below. Dad told us he called it his “lucky coin.” So much for that! I don’t know this to be true, but I like to think that he carried this particular coin because it was minted in the year he married my grandmother, which is why he would consider it to be his lucky dollar.
