Part One of this post is HERE.
So we left off with my Grandfather running around in the jungles of the Pacific theater in WWII in a loin cloth building trails and roads for the troops as a member of the Army Corp of Engineers.
No one from Frank's family had heard from him, not his father(his mother had died on May 30th of that year), not his 5 living siblings nor his "real" wife and 2 children. My grandmother believing Frank died in the war remarried to my step grandfather in February of 1949. I suppose they had him declared dead first so she was officially a widow.
Afterwards, when Frank reconnected with his family in the mid 1960's, the family found out that after the war, Frank had survived and came back to the USA. He got a job working for the Federal Government in the Fueling Department which required him to travel for business. I know he went to Alaska a bit on business as well as anywhere the US government had military instillations around the world as part of his job.
He liked to keep photos of himself in various cities around the US.....
Here's another photo of granddad in roughly that same time period in the San Francisco Bay area. You probably can't make out the Golden Gate bridge behind him in the distance(behind the darker bridge).
But let's back up a bit and fill in some other missing pieces of the puzzle of my grandfather.
They are standing left to right, oldest to youngest. Frank is on the left with Mary, Margaret "Peggy" and Eleanor "Ella" and the baby of the family William "Bill" also called "Sonny".(Remember my father was called "Little Sonny" because he and Bill were only a few years apart in age.
Here's a photo I have of John Vincent "Jack" Bowman from 1931.....
He had enlisted in the Navy in this photo. He married around 1935 and had 5 kids with his first wife Madelyn.
This photo is from sometime in March of 1973 when Granddad was on vacation in Fort Lauderdale.
My cousin Shirley, 1st cousin 1 x removed(her dad and my grandfather were siblings) told me about 8 years ago that Frank, my Granddad, got back in touch with his immediate family in the mid 1960's.
Shirley sent me this photo of Frank and his siblings from Easter 1965(which was April 18th that year)........
Missing from this photo is the middle son, John "Jack" Bowman. (Jack was between Mary and Peggy in the birth order.)
Perhaps he couldn't make it out to New York state for Easter that year from California where he lived. He was a C.H.I.P.s highway motorcycle patrol policeman. Like that tv show that started back in 1977......
He also served in the Korean War and here's a photo of him in his officer's uniform before his retirement from the Navy.....
It's unfortunate that John didn't make it to see his oldest brother in April of 1965 because less than a month later that year Jack died on the job of a heart attack in California on May 9th. He was only 51 years old.
Shirley, Jack's daughter, said that Frank went out to California in 1966, the following year, to visit his brother's kids and Jack's widow, Kathe.
Kathe was Jack's 2nd wife, Jack was Kathe's 2nd husband too.
Kathe Luise Dettmer emigrated to the US from Germany in 1923 at the age of 2 with her mother Luise. She lived in New York with her parents Paul Emil and Luise and her younger sister Gertrude until her marriage in 1942 to Robert Harvey Lounsbury. Kathe and Robert Lounsbury had a son and daughter in 1943 and 1944 respectively.
Sometime after the birth of their second child, Kathe and Robert divorced(date unknown). Kathe then married Jack Bowman sometime after Jack and his first wife, Madelyn(Shirley's mother)divorced(date also unknown but was after the birth of Madelyn and Jack's last child Kevin in 1946). Kathe was still living in New York in 1958 and her voter registration from 1962 still lists her surname as Lounsbury so it was sometime after then but before 1965.
At the time of Jack's death in California, Kathe was his wife.
I suppose my Grandfather Frank met Kathe on that visit out to California to see his brother's children.
Less than 3 years later, on March 22nd, 1969 Frank married his dead brother's wife, Kathe and they went to live in the house Frank built in Fairfax, Virginia. Kathe was 48 years old.
On their marriage license Kathe listed herself as a widow and her marriage to Frank was her third, while Frank listed himself as divorced and this was his third marriage as well.
We have to take Frank's words with a grain of salt since we really don't know what number marriage this really was(could be 4th or more). My aunt told me a few years ago that Frank, besides marrying 2 English women in England during WWII that my mom told me about, he had been "involved" with a women in the US WAC also. Hmmmm.
Frank never divorced my grandmother(the one he left in Brooklyn with 2 children)but what can you say on your wedding license? I ran out on the first Mrs. Bowman to fight the Nazis, then disappeared during the war from at least two more wives in England? I think the clerk would have raised an eyebrow over that and there really isn't room for all those lies on the certificate. lol
At some point when Frank got in touch with his father Frank and his siblings he also wrote to his two children-my aunt and my father. His first wife, my Granny had remarried in 1949 to my step Grandfather I called "Potty Dave"(me being a small child, said Poppy as Potty).
Having lost his father at the age of 10 without a word or support from him for 24 years, my father wanted nothing to do with his "dad" in 1965 when Frank Sr. tried to reconnect. My aunt was more forgiving and let Granddad back into her and her family's lives back in the 1960's.
My mother feeling badly about the rift between my father and his dad corresponded with Frank Sr. in secret until the 1970's. Frank traveled for his government job and we lived in Norfolk where the largest Naval facility on the East Coast is/was so when he'd come to town mom would go have lunch with him. Us kids were in school and my father was none the wiser about their secret rendezvous' where she'd give him photos and updates on his grandchildren and he'd give her small gifts for us kids sometimes or money to slip an extra present under the Christmas tree during the holidays. But we were never told he existed.
Granddad retired from his job on February 20th, 1969 not quite a month before marrying his younger brother Jack's widow, Kathe.
Frank Sr. sent me a bunch of photos of himself once my parents agreed to tell us he existed in the 1970's but I am getting ahead of myself.
Eventually in 1973 my mother wore my father down in regards to communicating with his father Frank. That's the spring that I came home from high school one day and my mom said your Grandfather is going to call you tonight. Huh? This is went I was officially told that old granddad had NOT died in WWII but was still alive and living in Northern Virginia. So I talked on the phone that evening in 1973 to the man I didn't know until that night that was my grandfather Frank.
I had been told when I was about 10 that my "real" grandfather had died in World War II(and the man I called "Potty Dave" who had died in 1966 when I was 7 had been my step Granfather)so this was confusing to say the least. No, we kids had been lied to all these years because my father wanted nothing to do with his father, our grandfather. I don't know exactly why my father relented in 1973....perhaps he thought he'd punished his father enough, perhaps my mother showed him one of the letters grandfather had written to my mother-probably the one where he professed to being so sorry for making the mistake of abandoning his family back in 1941(that's the letter I still have from my mother's papers). Who knows what went on in my father's brain!? My father was pretty much been a mystery like his own father!
I just know that a couple months after that phone call in February of 1973, on a day in Spring, the younger of my two brothers came home on a bus from VA Tech. We piled into the car the next day, drove to VCU in Richmond to pick up the older of my two brothers from his college and then drove to Fairfax, Virginia. My father dropped us 3 kids and my mother off at the end of the driveway of our Grandfather's house. Dad refused to see his father that day. That is how I finally met my paternal grandfather in 1973 at the age of 14.
Here's photo I took of his house from the road before we were dropped off in his driveway.
Part Three, the final part, coming this weekend.
Sluggy
