Bio-Bowman, AureliusA

Aurelius A. "Rily" Bowman
(1861-1914)

Aurelius A. "Rily" Bowman was born during the Civil War in Mt. Perry, Perry County, OH, on June 29, 1861, the son of Jonas B. and Lucy (Danison) Bowman. He and his father and brother were prominent businessmen in Indiana, but all were cut down by death in the prime of their lives.

As a boy, Aurelius moved with his parents to nearby Somerset, Perry County, where his father learned the carriage manufacturing trade.

On Sept. 14, 1887, at Somerset, Aurelius married Mary Catherine Russell (1869-1947). She was born on Nov. 28, 1869 at Somerset, the daughter of William and Mary Russell. They went on to have two sons, Willard Eugene Bowman and Russell A. Bowman.

A year after marriage, Aurelius and Mary moved with his parents to Indiana, settling in Hartford City, Blackford County. They resided at 423 North Jefferson Street

He helped his father and brother Joseph establish and build a carriage manufacturing business, called Bowman & Co. Aurelius was a painter by training, and probably decorated the carriages they built or repaired.

The business mushroomed into prominence. In 1896, at what was probably the height of their careers, Aurelius, Jonas and Joseph were pictured in a booklet promoting the benefits of living and working in Hartford City. The booklet said that the Bowmans were:

...manufacturers of surreys, buggies; and light vehicles of all descriptions.... [The] local patronage bestowed upon the firm has increased each year as the public apparently appreciates the value of first-class work ... and especial attention is given to fine repair work.

Aurelius may have been the most business-minded of the three men, and he probably ran the firm, with his father and brother doing the hands-on work in the shop. In fact, by 1896, the business was known as "A.A. Bowman & Co." In 1906, after the death of their father, Aurelius assumed an even more prominent role, and after Joseph died unexpectedly in 1911, became sole owner. He was an active socialite, joining the Blackford Club.

As the automobile became more of a staple of American society, the firm's business, which depended on horse and buggy technology, declined. In 1914, Aurelius diversified the family's assets by purchasing the Palace Theatre, seen at left in an image provided courtesy of the Blackford County Historical Society. The theatre sat on the east side of the public square in Hartford City.

Aurelius actively managed the property for only a few months until his untimely death. The theatre no longer exists, but the site, seen here in color, is across the street from the courthouse.

Aurelius suffered from diabetes and heart problems. In November 1913 "he went to Waukesha, Wis., where he was a patient in the Still Rock Spa for eight weeks and took treatment from Dr. A.J. Hodgson, considered the greatest authority in the world on diabetes.... The first of [1914, he] returned to Hartford City, much improved in health."

In the spring of 1914, he caught a bad cold, and his health went downhill fast. At death's door, he "was baptized in the Catholic church," and the next day he passed away on April 27, 1914. The news made front-page headlines in the Hartford City Evening News, and shocked his many friends. At the funeral, "Beautiful floral tributes from sorrowing friends bore mute evidence of the esteem in which [he] was held by his associates and acquaintances.... Thirty members of the Blackford club, each wearing a white carnation, marched in the funeral procession."

Mary resided in Hartford City for many years off and on, and was a member of the St. John's Catholic Church. In 1919, she was living in Detroit with or near her son Russell, who worked there as an electrician. In November 1946, she went to visit son Willard in Orange, NJ. While there, on Jan. 16, 1947, she had a heart attack in her bedroom died instantly. Her body was brought back to Hartford City for burial.

Son Russell Bowman ( ? - ? ) served as a corporal in World War I, with the Motor Mechanics Co. 19, 4th Regiment. He was a member of the American Legion Post 159 for half a century, and his name is etched on an impressive war memorial at the Blackford County Courthouse, seen here.

Son Willard E. Bowman (1890-1962), seen here, made a name for himself in Newark, NJ in the fields of journalism, public relations and advertising, and is profiled in the 1939 edition of Who's Who in New Jersey.

He got his start as managing editor of his hometown newspaper, the Hartford City Times Gazette. Then he cut his political teeth as a publicity writer for the Indiana State Republican Committee.

Willard moved to Detroit in 1916 to work as a copyreader, makeup man and editorial writer for the old Detroit Journal. In 1920, he became Washington DC correspondent for the Paul Block chain of newspapers, including the old Newark Star-Eagle. Willard relocated to Newark in 1922 to become managing editor and later executive editor of the Star-Eagle, until it became what today is the state's largest paper, the Newark Star-Ledger. One of Willard's editors was Grove Patterson, who later published autobiographical memoirs entitled I Like People. Of his responsibilities after World War I, working for publishers N.C. Wright, H.S. Talmadge, Paul Block and Clarence Vernam, Patterson writes:

Although I felt that I then had about all I could do and more than I did well, my responsibility was increased when the same four men bought the Newark, N.J., Star-Eagle, and added to my supervision the news department of that paper. In that capacity, however, I was immensely fortified by Willard Bowman, whom we moved from the Detroit Journal to be managing editor of the Star Eagle. My trips to Newark during the Wright-Talmadge-Block-Vernam ownership were not necessarily frequent... Later Messrs. Wright, Talmadge and Vernam sold their interests in the Star-Eagle to Mr. Block, who published it for a number of years. Today, merged with a morning paper, the Star-Eagle has become the Star-Ledger, owned by S.I. Newhouse, successful publisher of a string of newspapers. Willard Bowman, with whom I had the privilege of working both on the Detroit Journal and the Star-Eagle, is the associate publisher of the Star-Ledger.

Busy Newark as Willard would have known it. The Bamberger store, where he worked in the 1930s, is the silver- grey building at left, with the store name at the top.

Willard was an avid student of journalism, and used his stature to advocate for the interests of newspapers. He penned a guest column in Editor and Publisher on April 27, 1929, lamenting the decline of independently owned local newspapers and the rise of the large national newspaper chains. He is quoted in several books on the subject -- including American Journalism, 1690-1940, by Frederic Hudson, Alfred McClung Lee and Frank Luther Mott, and Journalism in the United States, authored by Robert William Jones and published in 1947. He also had a pass to the U.S. Congress press gallery in Washington, DC.

At some point Willard left newspapering briefly to go to the "other side" and served as publicity director of the prominent Newark department store, L. Bamberger & Co., for several years. Unsatisfied, he returned to the Star-Ledger and was associate publisher from 1939 until his retirement in 1954. One of the young writers Willard edited was Andrew E. Svenson, who later authored several Hardy Boys mystery books under the pen name of "Franklin W. Dixon."

Active in the community and profession, said the old Newark News, Willard once "served on the state's Educational Fact Finding Commission by appointment of Gov. A. Harry Moore. He also served on the State Aviation Commission and on a special commission formed in 1933 to regulate the sale of beer with the end of Prohibition. He also served as president of the Advertising Club of Newark and the Broad Street and Merchants Association." He is one of only a few known cousins to earn a feature obituary in the New York Times, seen here.

Willard married Mary Pauline Smith, and their children were Mary Elizabeth "Jane" O'Donoghue of Belmar, NJ; Margaret Pauline Moore of Mamaroneck, NY; and Richard Eugene Bowman of Sea Girt, NJ.