Happy 112th Birthday Granddad-Part 3

**This part of the story was difficult for me to write but it is the true account of my memories of that time. **

Part One of this post is HERE.

Part Two of this post is HERE.

So we left off in the Spring of 1973 being dropped off at my newly found out about grandfather's house.

I really don't remember much from that visit.  Kathe his wife made us lunch and there was a tour of the house granddad had built himself(he was in the Army Corp of Engineers during the war so he had some building skills)and then some chatting and he showed us his photo albums.  Mostly I played with his dog, Teri.

My brother got taken back into granddad's bedroom and shown various war mementos(stuff granddad had taken off of dead Nazis and Japanese soldiers since he fought both in the European and the Pacific theaters).  Stuff he assumed a 20 year old man would enjoy seeing, including that machete in the photo I shared in both previous granddad posts. ;-)

My brother told me a few years ago when we were reminiscing over that trip to meet our grandfather that while granddad was showing my brother his war artifacts he asked my brother, "I was wondering why none of you kids(meaning me and both my brothers)never tried to contact me".  My brother, without missing a beat, reply, "Well, until a couple of days ago we didn't know you existed!" And that was the truth. 8-)  I suppose old granddad had no idea how controlling our father(his son)was and how our mother had to hide her association with granddad fully from our father by not even letting on to us kids that he existed.  If she had, one of us would have eventually slipped up and dad would have found out and our home life would have been a LOT more unpleasant than it already was at that time.

Here is a photo granddad either gave me on that visit or mailed to me later that year........

This is a photo from Christmas time of 1968.  It's Granddad Frank on the left with his father, Frank, who was my Great Grandfather.  I believe this was taken at Great Grandfather Frank's daughter's house near Staunton, Virginia(my grandfather's sister Mary).  I know from a letter Granddad wrote to my mom that Frank's father, Frank, Sr. was staying with his daughter Mary around this time.  Mary was a psychiatric nurse for a time at the Western State Hospital in Staunton, Virginia.  Eventually Great Granddad Frank, Sr. was moved back to Orange County New York were he had grown up and returned to by 1922(when his and his wife's youngest daughter Eleanor was born). Frank Sr. died in June of 1969 in  Orange County, New York.  Until a few years ago this was the only photo I had of him and due to my father's estrangement from his father I never got to meet him even though he didn't pass away until I was 10 years old.

I do remember playing with Granddad's pets on that first visit.....

He had a German Shepherd named Teri and a gray striped cat named Mosby.  Being a history(and specifically military history)fan the car was named for Colonel John Singleton Mosby,  the head of the military unit called Mosby's Rangers".  

Mosby also holds the moniker of "The Grey Ghost" of the Confederacy. Go look him up if you are interested.  He led quite an interesting life.

So we came home from Fairfax the next day and life bumped along as usual.

That Summer the younger of my two older brothers graduated from college.  My Granny Paul came to stay with us and drive out to VPI to attend his graduation.

This is the last photo I have of Granny with me and our dog, Annie, taken before we drove out to Western VA, taken in front of the huge new 5 bedroom house we lived in.

Later that Summer my parents took me to a CPA convention with them in Dallas, TX.  It was sort of fun because they had kid activities and outings but I was at an awkward early teen age.

Granddad sent us Christmas presents that year and he wrote often and sent me more photos. This photo is of his "third" wife Kathe in the yard by her rose bushes with Teri the dog taken in 1972.  That's granddad's van in the lower driveway.

He also sent me this clipping from his local newspaper of him voting in an election on Nov. 4th, 1969. 

St. Mary's Catholic Church was the oldest building in that district of VA used as a polling spot and granddad took great pride in always being the first person at that polling location every year to cast his ballot.  He got his picture in the local newspaper most election years casting the first ballot there.

Summer of 1974 rolled around and it was a hard and lonely time at my house...both my brothers were out of the house working in different parts of Virginia, my parents had suddenly sold our house in Norfolk in 1973 and moved me to Virginia Beach.  I was 15 years old and knew no one in that area but they kept me in the private high school I began attending in late 1972 in Norfolk.  My father was "away" on business and my mother would check herself into a private psychiatric facility in Norfolk frequently. If mom was home, my father was never home during the weeks and she'd drive me to a bus stop during the week to get to school.  If mom was not home my father would be home during the week to drive me to the bus and home but he would always be away on the weekends.  I never knew which of them would be home and for how long.   Mostly I felt like I was left alone in this new house with just our family dog, Annie, for company.  I didn't drive yet so I was pretty much trapped there.  I couldn't do any extracurricular activities as I'd miss my only ride home nor go anywhere or see friends on the weekend as nobody lived nearby or drove yet.

That June of 1974 after moving to the new house in Virginia Beach my father invited granddad to come for a visit.  It was the only time my father would let granddad stay with us.  Here is the only photo(besides the one cousin Judy sent me of my father as a baby with his dad)I have of the two of them together.....

This photo was taken on Father's Day of 1974.  The first Father's Day they spent together since 1941.

Granddad only stayed a few days and I remember he drank a lot as did my father.  I think the reason my father "let" granddad come stay was so that he could throw it up into  his father's face that despite him abandoning his wife and kids, my father had made himself  into a "successful" man.  He finished college at night and graduated from ODU the year before my oldest brother graduated from high school, got his CPA license and was a partner in one of the most successful firms in the state by this point.  "Take that old man", should be the caption of this photo! ;-)  My father was still very cool toward my grandfather during this visit.  It took quite a few drinks in my father to get him to stand this close to his dad.

My parents(or one of them)thought it was a good idea to send me to stay with Granddad for a few weeks later that Summer(a sort of get her out of the way while we work on our shit situation).  So after school let out for the year I was put on a Greyhound bus in July to Fairfax and Granddad picked me up at the station and took me to his house.  

I was very much into oil painting during this part of my life and I had brought my painting case full of supplies with me.  Granddad noticed my interest in painting so he took me to an art store near the beginning of my stay and bought me an easel and canvases so I could paint while staying there.  He set me up a "painting studio" in his basement.  There was a radio down there so I painted the hours away listening to the top 40 hits of the Summer of 1974.

It's funny how all these songs have the work "rock" in them. lol  I can't hear these songs and a few others without being transported back to my grandfather's basement.

A typical day was spent after breakfast down in the basement painting, then lunch, then more painting before dinner and some tv watching before bed.

Kathe was home for a few days before she left on a trip to go visit her daughter and grandchildren in Florida.  I suppose she hung around awhile to make sure Granddad and I were hitting it off ok before she left us.  Kathe worked at the Braddock Elementary School in their library.  She did a lot of reading to the small children in her position.  She asked me to paint her a picture she could use in the Fall to tell a story for the kids, which I did.  I suppose she left it at the school or took it when Frank died and she moved away because I don't have a photo of that one.  I also don't have a photo of the painting I did for Kathe.  She loved birds and had a birdfeeder near the basement door which Frank called "Kathe's Cafe".  I did a painting of that for her after she left for Florida.  that one was quite good for someone of my age who had just taken up painting.

Here's a photo of me standing near that bird feeder on the brick patio at Granddad's house.  Notice my only "nice" dress is the same one I wore the Summer before to my brother's graduation. lol

Granddad said he wanted me to paint a portrait of Teri his dog as well so here is that one.....

These were just paintings done on cheap board canvases.  Not my best work but it's not bad.  Granddad had this one put in a substantial frame and hung on the wall in his den.

He also had a metal plaque affixed to the frame with the dog's name.  Granddad called his property "Brookside".  It was a little over 4 acres of land.  One day after lunch he made me go hike it with him and Teri.  Mostly the land was all overgrown with high weeds(3 feet or so).  Having been a city/suburban girl I didn't know not to hike in the woods in shorts and Granddad didn't warn me.  A couple hours later I started feeling/finding ticks all over me!!!

About 10 years ago Granddad's old house went up for sale and I found some photos online from the sales listing.  Here's the bathroom and it looks much in this photo as it did back in 1974.  I remember that window very well.  Granddad had an ashtray, a pack of matches and a pair of tweezers sitting on the window sill.  Until that hike around the property I didn't understand why. The reason became very clear to me after that hike.  ick.

Another thing interesting was that the spare bedroom I was sleeping in.  I found out the first night that this bed was where Teri the dog(and sometimes Mosby the cat)slept at night.  I was laying in bed the first night there and Teri nuzzled the door open and jumper right on me in bed. ;-)  From then on I had to lock the door(the lock was barely functional)to keep her out.  Teri also drug in ticks onto the bed so I had to do a bed tick check every night. 8-(

Most days while staying with granddad after Kathe left town we had lunch out at some small place he liked to go in a strip mall.  He was on a first name basis with the waiter.  Granddad always had at least two wine spritzers at lunch(3 parts wine/1 part club soda or 7-Up).  He'd have as many as 4 some days.  Then he'd drive us home.  He also would throw back a couple of drinks after dinner at home.  One day I wanted a dish of ice cream after lunch at the restaurant and he told the waiter to put creme de menthe over it.....alcoholic creme de menthe. lol 
I felt uncomfortable with him driving after drinking but what could I do?  I couldn't drive and there was no one there to tell about it.

So after about 10 days staying with him, and another trip to the restaurant for a 4 drink spritzer lunch we went home.  I painted until dinner as usual listening to those dreadful 1974 hits on the radio.  That evening Granddad had quite a few more drinks of hard liquor and got quite maudlin and teary eyed.  He made me sit beside him on the sofa and just babbled on about what he did wrong in his life while I tried to make myself tiny and disappear and wished for this to end.  He started kissing me and saying how much he loved me and all his grandchildren.  He started crying and kept drinking.  Then he planted a wet kiss on my mouth and tried to French Kiss me.  To say I was shocked was an understatement!! I didn't even know what that was until later.  I immediately excused myself, trying to be composed about it, saying I was tired and went into my bedroom.  locked the door and put a chair as well as my suitcase against the door too.  I don't think I slept that night, sitting up in bed, half scared to death and mightily confused.

The next morning Granddad acted like nothing had happened(he was so soused he probably didn't remember)and he fixed breakfast.  Over breakfast I told him I needed to call my mom.  He let me call and left the room while I did.  I told mom I was homesick and  wanted to come home early(as in now!)so she arranged for a bus ticket home.  I told Granddad that I was homesick(what a lie!...I didn't want to be there OR home)and I wanted to go home.  The next day he drove me to the bus station and I left for home.

Up until a few days ago when I told Hubs this part of the story(I felt he needed to know before I told the world on the blog)I had never mentioned this incident to a living soul.  I figured if I told my parents either they would do nothing(as they were too involved in their own shit)or not believe me or worse yet, never speak to Granddad again as that chasm of a rife between Granddad and my father was still wide and as raw after 33 years when it began.

I prefer to think that this episode was alcohol induced and were it not for the liquor it never would have happened.  I don't think the event scarred me too much and I wouldn't go so far as to call a molestation.  I was more shocked about it at that point I was NOT a sexually active teen at 15 years old and wasn't even thinking about that sort of thing.

Anyway, we didn't see Granddad again until 1977 when I graduated from high school.  My mom was back in her private psychiatric hospital then and had gotten a day pass to attend the ceremony and Granddad had come down from Fairfax.

This photo was taken the night before at the awards ceremony in the high school auditorium.  I got my honor medal, gold tassel and a theater award that night.

My father never even bothered to show up to either event but one of my brothers did(the other one was out at sea for his job).

Here I am at the graduation in Chrysler Hall with my mom.  This would be the last time I ever saw my Granddad.

I spent that miserable summer after graduation working at Zero's sub shop living alone at home(or with a friend who got kicked out of her house by her mom so I let stay with me)before being driven up to college by my oldest brother and my father and being dropped off at my dorm.

I got through that year, barring that suicide attempt by my mother, came home on the bus and got a job for the summer as a substitute newspaper carrier for a couple who had something like 6 paper routes who wanted to take a long vacation.  I saw some crazy stuff working the predawn hours at those apartment complexes chucking newspapers. ;-)

Granddad would write me often wondering why I didn't write him back.  First off what kid that age wants to write letters to a grandparent they hardly know? How could I explain to him(or would he want to hear)about how shitty my life was during those years(late high school and freshman year of college)?  I didn't have any "fun" news just misery.  Hard times at school, trying to fit in and not fail, acting out to get attention from either parent, not knowing if I'd have money to eat from one day to the next, no support system except for after I met Hubs at college(he was my rock).

In September 1978 granddad Frank died and my brother got me from college to go to Fairfax for the viewing/wake and funeral.  I refused to go to the viewing.  After losing what I thought were 3 grandparents between the age of 7 and 9(1 turned out to be a step grandparent)I had a very difficult memory of viewings.  Those horrible events are etched into my psyche.  My aunt Marilyn tried to convince me to go but I said no and I meant it.  I did attend the funeral.  They buried granddad Frank by his beloved St. Mary's Catholic Church, where he always was the first one in the precinct to vote.  He rests there alone as Kathe went on to marry a fourth time(in 1981 to John Rose who died in 1989).  Kathe ended up dying in Benson, Arizona in 2009.

I have mixed feelings about my paternal grandfather.  I only knew him for less than 6 years though he died when I was almost 20 years old.

Some days I wish he had taken a different path in life that hadn't cause the emotional and psychological damage it did in my immediate family but then again, if he had, I may not be here.  I do wish I had had the presence of mind at 15 years old to ask him some hard questions on that trip to stay with him.

On the bright side he did spark my enthusiasm for genealogy.  He would often write me letters about his ancestors and even did some genealogy work on his tree back in the day before the internet when you had to go to library archives and courthouses to dig for all your information.  

What I found interesting if not amusing is Granddad really admired HIS Great Grandfather, Robert Spencer Bowman, the first one on his paternal line to immigrate to America from Ireland in 1855.  Old Granddad was about as far from being like his Great Grandfather as a person could get.  Robert Spencer Bowman settled in upstate New Year, was a volunteer fireman in his community supported and never left his large family(had a large family cemetery plot to provide for them all upon death even)and was faithful to his wife until his death in 1901.

I hope Granddad Frank is truly at rest now. 

Sluggy

Happy 112th Birthday Granddad-The Black Sheep of His Family

 I am late with this post but last Tuesday, Feb. 16th, would have been my paternal Grandfather's 112th birthday.  I don't feel too badly about being late with this one since Granddad was, as they say, "a wicked old screw" and not much of a family man.

Frank Foster Bowman, Jr. died on 5 September 1978.  I remember because my immediate family was a mess at that time and I had been yanked out of college the Fall of 1977 right before the play I was starring in was to be presented because my mother had attempted suicide and was in the hospital and they didn't know if she'd live.  It was deja vue for me the next Fall of 1978 as I had just gone back for my sophomore year of college, only to have my mother call and say my grandfather had died and they were pulling me out of school for a couple of days and my brother was driving to Maryland to pick me up the next day.  

We went to Fairfax,Virginia where my grandfather lived and stayed at a motel with my parents for the night.  I didn't go to the viewing/wake as I had childhood trauma from attending 3 of those affairs as a young child.  My aunt and some of her kids came to the funeral from Massachusetts but her mother, my grandmother Catherine, Frank's first wife, did NOT attend for reasons that will become obvious later on in this post.

What shall I say about Frank in remembrance?  He was born in Bridgeport Connecticut in 1909, the oldest of  6 siblings that survived childhood.  His family moved to New Windsor, New York sometime after 1920 as the family is still in CT in that census year and his third sister, Eleanor, was born in New Windsor in 1922.  

At age 16 Frank ran away from home(this would just be the first time he ran away from family)and joined the U.S. Marines in July of 1925, lying about his age obviously.  He was stationed at the St. Helena Training Barracks in Berkley, VA(now part of Norfolk, VA).

This photo is of Frank in his dress blues in 1926 at the St. Helena Barracks.

I suppose when he went to re-up after his 2 year hitch they discovered he had lied about his age in 1925 so he was mustered out of the Marines in 1927.

Frank made his way up to the Boston area afterwards where he met my grandmother, Catherine McCarthy.  They married in 1928 in Cambridge Massachusetts, probably after a brief courtship, and the story is Catherine didn't invite her own father, Dennis McCarthy, to the wedding.

Frank and Catherine lived in Manhattan, NYC and Frank worked as a salesman in a department store there.  Between the 1930 census and the birth of my father in Nov. 1931 the family had moved to Brooklyn, NY.  

I connected briefly awhile back with a 1st cousin 1 x removed(my grandfather and her mother were siblings)and she emailed me these photos she had....

                                                     

My dad is about a year old in these photos which would make them from late 1932 or early 1933.  I believe they were taken in Upstate NY where my great Grandparents lived in Orange County.

The written caption says "Catherine, Frank and Sonny".  They use to call my father Little Sonny.  

My grandfather Frank's youngest sibling, Bill Bowman was nicknamed Sonny. Frank was the oldest child that lived(a son Richard died shortly after birth in 1908) so there was a 20 year span between him and Bill.  Bill was born in 1928 and my father in 1931 so my father and his Uncle were practically the same age. 8-)

                                                           

This photo is on my father and his mom, Catherine and a big dog.  My Grandmother Catherine is 23 in these photos.  Love that fur trimmed 1930's coat and that short flapper hairstyle!

In the 1940 census the family was still living in Brooklyn and Frank was employed as an Electrician Foreman for a construction firm.  

Frank enlisted in the NY National Guard in 1932 after my father was born and in 1935 won a recruitment medal/award from the National Guard.

Here is Frank in his National Guard uniform sometime in the mid 1930's.....

By 1934 my grandparents had another child, my Aunt Marilyn.

Here's where his story runs off the rails.....

In 1941, after Pearl Harbor Frank left his family, the old "he went out for a pack of cigarettes and never came back".  He enlisted in the US Army on 31 Dec. 1941 and listed himself as single.

I also found a WWII draft card where Frank stated his next of kin was, Albert Martin, a friend he was living with at 121 Madison Ave. NYC.  Here's a photo of that apartment building today located at the corner of 30th St.

Frank lists his employer as Gilliam and McVay which turns out was a real estate broker in NY at that time.  So at this point he had left his wife and kids without a howdy dee do and was living in Manhattan.

At some point after January 1st, 1942 he was shipped out to England.  He served in both the European and the Pacific theaters during the war.  

While in Europe he married 2 British women, yes, he was married to both at the same time.  He was a bigamist, thus I refer to him as a wicked old screw.  Frank told my mother in the 1960's that he was married to two women in England during WWII and my aunt confirmed that he had married in England during the war too.

A few years ago my aunt Marilyn also mentioned that Frank had told her he was "involved" with a WAC also during the war.  She didn't have a name or know if he had married her or what.  This just added to his lovely image of being a womanizer.  But he was an old school, good Catholic and he seemed to always marry them before bedding them(even if he already had a wife back in NY).

Once the war was over in Europe(VE Day)he was shipped out to the Pacific and served there until VJ Day before returning to the US.

When Frank left Europe he never told either wife in England he was leaving and of course neither wife knew about the other.  Since he "disappeared" during the war it was presumed by these wives that he had died in the war.  The other shoe dropped the day the second Mrs. Frank Bowman applied for her widow's pension with the British government and was told they were sorry but Mrs. Frank Bowman had already applied for that pension.

Another 1st cousin 1 x removed Shirley, the daughter of my grandfather's younger brother John "Jack" Bowman told me about 10 years ago that at least one of Frank's English wives had a daughter and she had immigrated to Canada but I've been unable to ascertain where or her name(or the name of her mother).

But I digress....

During the war Frank was not in touch with his family, neither my grandmother and their 2 children nor his parents and his siblings.  Frank's mother, Kitty O'Brien Bowman died in 1945, before the war ended not knowing whether her son Frank was alive or dead.

Here's a photo of Frank's parents, Frank Sr. and Catherine "Kitty".  I don't know what year this photo was taken other than before 1945.

So Frank shipped off to the Pacific Theater after VE Day.  He was a member of the Corp of Engineers at this point.....

He was a Master Sargent and leader of his unit.......

Frank is center front row in this group shot of  his battalion.

I found a book written after the war, "The Corps of  Engineers: The War Against Japan: written by Carl C. Dod, with this foreword by Brigadier General Hal Pattison in 1965......

Contributions of the Corps of Engineers to victory in war, and to our country's peacetime history, are well known and appreciated. The skill and versatility of this talented body of soldiers met a supreme test in operations against the Japanese, many of which were conducted in the most primitive and undeveloped regions of the world. Engineers built the Alaska Highway, Canol, and the Ledo Road in Burma. They cleared the jungles to build airfields for heavy bombers and supervised the work of Filipinos, Chinese, and Melanesians as they built runways by hand. They built ports, roads, and docks where none had existed. Indeed, one of the most familiar recollections of the U.S. veteran of the war against Japan is the ubiquitous engineer operating a bulldozer....."

In that context this next photo cousin Shirley sent me makes sense....

My grandfather Frank somewhere in Asia in a loincloth posing with a machete for the camera. lolz

So after the war what did Frank do?  Where did Frank go?

This has gotten quite long so I'll continue this story in a Part Two about my black sheep, mysterious paternal Grandfather.

Sluggy

My Genealogical Obsession

Ok, some folks refer to stuff like this as the "Family Skeletons in the Closet".
Here's the big one in my father's family.

My father's father, Francis "Frank" Bowman was born 1909 in Bridgeport, CT.
I met the man in 1973 for the first time and he died in 1978 in Virginia while I was away at college in Maryland.
This man came into my life in 1973 and his life story and it's mysteries is my genealogical obsession.

As I've posted before(see HERE)the man who I called grandfather while growing up was "Potty Dave".  He was the man I knew as my grandfather.
Long after "Potty Dave" died in 1966 I was told that my father's dad, Frank, had died years ago and "Potty Dave" was my paternal grandmother's second husband.

Imagine my surprise when in 1973 when my parents sat me down for an "announcement" and said that dad's father, Frank, was alive and well and we were going to visit him tomorrow.

That's the year I got to meet my "real" grandfather.

Here is a photo of Frank Bowman taken during WWII.  He had this taken to send home to his parents and siblings.

As I mentioned in a genealogy post before, I was told by a cousin of my father's a few years ago that Frank ran away from home at the age of 16 to join the military in 1925 or 1926.

If you remember my previous post HERE Frank Foster Bowman, Jr. the oldest son of Frank Foster Bowman, Sr. and Catherine O'Brien was born and raised in Bridgeport, CT.  In 1925, when Frank, Jr. was 16 years old the family had moved to Upstate NY(Orange County).  They may have been other factors at work here but being 16 years old means chafing under your parents rules and being 16 years old and having to relocate from your school and your friends and everything you've ever known means Frank, Jr. may have had a hard time adjusting to all these changes.  Plus when they moved Frank lost his maternal grandfather as well, who had lived with the family while in CT.

1925 was a year of changes for my grandfather.

Here's a photo I have of Frank, Jr. taken 1 year later in 1926.....

The back of the photo notes that this picture was taken at the Saint Helena Training Station Marine Barracks in Berkley Virginia(Berkley no longer exists as an independent town, but is a section of Norfolk, Virginia, where the branches of the Elizabeth River meet).
Frank was 16 or 17 years old in that photo and a long way from New Windsor, NY.

I found the US Marines Muster Roll and it says he enlisted in July of 1925 and mustered out in 1927.
He only served as far as I know for a 2 year hitch(he enlisted during peace time), so he was out by 1928.

The next time I can find Frank Bowman in an official document is 1930 in the Federal Census for that year.  He is married to my grandmother, Catherine McCarthy, and they are living in Manhattan, NYC, and they state they have been married for 2 years which means they got married in 1928.

I have no clue about Frank's movements between the time he left the service and he hooked up with my grandmother.
And this is driving me nuts!
You see, I can't figure out how they were in the same vicinity at the same time and actually met.

My grandmother was born in Cambridge, MA and lived there with her parents until she married in 1928.
The timing of when my grandfather was discharged from the service is right(1928)so he must have made his way to the Boston area shortly after leaving the Marines.
Frank grew up in Bridgeport, CT until his parents moved to New Windsor, NY(Orange County)in 1925, and he ran away soon after that.

If he was discharged and went to the Boston metro area in 1928 and he married Catherine McCarthy in that same year it's pretty clear that my grandparents had a VERY short courtship.
But I didn't even know where they got married until last week when I found this....

The Massachusetts Marriage Index with my grandmother listed as being married in Cambridge, MA in 1928.  My grandfather is listed in the MA Index too as being married in Somerville, MA in 1928.
At first this confused me but Cambridge and Somerville border each other so one of the clerks may have been confused.

So we know Frank Bowman somehow was in the New England/Boston area between his release from the Marines in the Summer of 1927 and the date in 1928 when he married Catherine McCarthy.

And by 1930 they were living together in New York City.  In November of 1931 their first child, my father, was born.

The next record I have found is from 1932.....

In March of 1932, when my father was 4 months old, Francis Foster Bowman Jr. joined the NYC National Guard.  He was assigned to Company M, of the 106th Infantry....or rather the predecessor of the 106th Infantry since this was peace time.

This record goes on to say that Francis(using his nickname of Frank)was honorably discharged in March of 1935 after 3 years.  He reenlisted for 3 more 1 year terms, finally separating from service in 1938.

He was living at 4108 8th Ave. Brooklyn, NY when he enlisted in 1932 and had a change of address to 236 51st St. Brooklyn, NY sometime between leaving 8th Ave. and moving to 5920 5th Ave. Brooklyn in 1935.

The move from 5th Ave. to that 8th Ave. location close to Sunset Park was 1.4 miles.
4108 8th Ave. was the midst of what is now Brooklyn's China Town.......

Their apartment was in the building with the green awning.
 The move from 8th Ave. to 51st St. was another 1.3 miles and closer to the docks on the Hudson River.

Their apartment was in the building with the blue doorway to the right of this photo.

The move in 1935 to 5920 5th Ave. Brooklyn is where the Frank & Catherine Bowman family seems to have stayed long term......if you can call 6 years long term.


There is also this record

Frank Bowman was awarded a service medal in 1935 for Recruiting.  He went on to be awarded 2 Bars on this in 1937.
He is listed as holding the rank of 1st Sargent in Company M of the 106th Infantry National Guard.

The 106th Infantry National Guard was based at the Bedford Atlantic Armory in Crown Heights section of Brooklyn.

Today that building is owned by the city of Brooklyn and serves as a men's homeless shelter among other functions.

And I recently unearthed this photo of my grandfather taken in the 1930's in what I suspect is his National Guard uniform.....

In the next Federal Census, for 1940, Frank Bowman, his wife Catherine and their two children are still living at 5920 5th Ave. in Brooklyn, NY.  Frank is working as an electrical foreman at a Construction Company, Catherine is keeping house, my father, Frank Junior is in second grade and my father's little sister is 5 years old.

World War II started in 1939 in Europe the year before the US 1940 Federal Census.
By late 1941 American knew she would be joining in the fight directly.

On December 7th, 1941 the Japanese attacked the US base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaiian Islands.
On December 8th, 1941 the US and Britain declared war on Japan.
On December 11th, 1941 Hitler declared war on the US.
And on December 31st, 1941 my grandfather, at the age of 32, the sole support of a wife and 2 kids, enlisted as a Private in the US Army to go fight in World War II.

As you can see on this index page of WWII enlistments he says he had 2 years of high school(he left school when he ran away to join the Marines back in 1925)and he says he has NO Dependents(Single without Dependents).

He obviously lied.  I don't know if it was because at his "advanced" age and being with dependents they might not have let him enlist OR if he told them no dependents so they didn't hold part of his service pay to send to his wife(which would have been a mean and unconscionable thing to do in my humble opinion).
We will most probably never know his motives here but the record clearly states what he said and did.

On January 26th, 1942 the 1st US troops began arriving in Great Britain.
I can bet you my grandfather was among those first troops sent to England being as he already had a history of military service and he enlisted 3 weeks after the US declared war on Germany.

At some point in my youth, after the death of Potty Dave, the man I thought was my grandfather, I had been told in an offhand way that my "real" grandfather was dead.

Then back in 1973, when told that the real grandfather was alive we children where also told that, like the old clique, "Your grandfather went out one day for a pack of cigarettes and never came back."

The story my father told was he just left one day without explanation and never came back.  Now my father had just turned 10 years old the month before when his father left to go into the war.
So I am sure it felt to him like his dad had abandoned him.  And in reality, after the war was over, Frank Bowman never went home to his wife and kids and he actually DID abandon them.

My father had great anger over what his father did and I don't blame him for feeling so hurt and angry and wanting nothing to do with him after that.
He wasn't around to be a father when my father was a teen, and show him how to grow up and be a good man.

Later on I found out third hand that while my grandfather did leave his family, his wife and their children did see/have contact with my grandfather's parents and siblings back in NY.

I don't know if any of my grandfather's family supported my grandmother and their kids but I do know that for as long as I was aware my grandmother worked.  Even after she remarried to my step-grandfather, she worked.
She was a strong woman who had basically been on her own with 2 small children since the very beginning of 1942.

Until 1973 and his visit to us in Virginia, my father had been estranged from his father since he deserted his family back there in Brooklyn when he was a 10 year old boy.  That's 32 years of hurt and anger.

I came to find out in 1973, when I was finally told of his existence, that my grandfather at some point had tried to get back in touch with my father but my father had refused any contact with him.  But my mother had, behind my father's back, been in contact surreptitiously with my grandfather for at least 6 years to that point in 1973.  My mother is the one who pushed my father to let his father, our grandfather, back into our lives.  And in 1973 my father acquiesced.
My grandmother, Catherine, did not have contact with her now ex-husband Frank, but my Aunt(my father's sister)did as her father, Frank, had also attempted to renew their relationship.

I recently found a letter that my grandfather had written to my mother, among the papers my brother found and gave to me back in January when I was down in Virginia visiting him.
It's dated 20 October 1967.  I was 8 years old at that time.  I was thinking about perhaps what prompted my mother to write to my grandfather behind my father's back(which was a very dangerous thing for her to do due to my father's control issues over her).
My mother had just lost her own mother the month before this in September 1967.  It's possible she was feeling that life is too short and it was time to build a bridge?  I can't be certain but I like to think this was her motivation.

Anyway,  Frank, my grandfather wrote a 7 page letter back to my mother, written on Department of the Navy, Naval Air Systems Command, Washington, D.C. letterhead.  From the "gist" of the letter this was the first time my mother contacted my grandfather and had sent him some photos of his grandchildren(me and my brothers).  Frank said he had some photos of us already he had been given by my Aunt(my father's sister)and by Frank's youngest brother, Bill.  My grandfather enclosed a photo of himself taken in 1966 on a trip to Carmel, CA inside the envelope with the letter.

Frank goes on to mention he was glad we had stopped to visit his brother Bill and his family while we were on Summer vacation.  This is a trip I have vague memories of, where we stopped for a night somewhere in upstate NY at some family relations house on our way to New England to camp-out.
Now I know who exactly we were visiting and when!

He talked a bit about my Great Grandfather, Frank Foster Bowman, Senior and how he was not doing well physically and had been living with his daughter Mary Bowman Brown in Staunton, VA.
He also talked about his active life, still working at 59 for the Army and traveling the world to such places as the Aleutian Islands, Kodiak Alaska, Iceland and Midway Island.

Near the end he got to the "meat and potatoes" of the letter for me when he said.....

"Carole, I know this isn't any of your concern but I must say it. Twenty seven years ago I made the biggest mistake of my life, I abandon(ed) my family.  I've paid for that mistake ten thousand times over....."

The tears just starting rolling down my face when I read that.
Wow.

He goes on to say that it took real courage to write those letters to his 2 children 2 years ago, which means he wrote my father asking for forgiveness for what he had done back in 1965.
Evidently my father never responded nor initiated contact with his father after that but my mother had gotten my grandfather's address and probably prompted by her own mother's death the month before replied to my grandfather 2 years after he first tried to reach out to his grown children.

Years later, after I was grown, my mother told me that there had been many letters in the 6 years between her first letter to Frank in 1967 and when we were told of his existence in 1973.
They had also met during the day for lunch while my father was at work and we were in school, all without telling my father about this contact.   We lived near 2 large military installations, Norfolk Naval Base and Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach, VA so he was often in the area for work.
I still have this little figurine my mother gave me at some point back around 1970.

I found out 3 years later that it was from my grandfather and not her.  Mom couldn't tell me because my father would have flipped out had he found out she was seeing and contacting my grandfather behind his back.

I'll continue this missive next time because there are even more secrets to tell!

Sluggy