Starlin's Alaskan Adventure

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Thanks to Hal Bowman (son of Starlin Bowman) for the following:


 Overview

This document has been assembled for Elizabeth, Mayel, Mary, Margaret and Becky who all probably remember their grandfather as an old man in his declining years setting in his green chair waiting for someone to call him to dinner.  Contrary to that image, he led a very interesting life.  He grew up surrounded by a large, active family with four brothers, two sisters and a community of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins from both his mother’s and father’s families.  The Bowman’s were moderately prosperous Indiana farmers by standards of the late ninetieth and early twentieth centuries although it isn’t obvious when looking at  surviving pictures.  I want you and your offspring to have some understanding of my dad in his prime, what he looked like and his sense of curiosity and adventure. 

He was a good student and well educated.  He got better grades at Purdue in 1917-1922 than did his younger son in the mid 50’s.  Fortunately we have a good collection of letters he wrote during the Alaska trip and during his WW II service in the Pacific.  The letters and articles he published show a literary talent typical of the age when good letter writing was considered a required social skill.

The Alaska Trip is the first of several vignettes I hope to put together in an attempt to pass on the family stories that no one else may know and to preserve and label the old pictures that are in the family collection.  I may be starting in the middle with this story, but in the recent process of sorting through the collection I found a pair of beaded Eskimo moccasins that needed a home.  The moccasins were one of several pairs S.E.B. brought home from his trip and gave to sisters and maybe others.  Beth has a pair that was given to my Aunt Nora.  I’m not sure who originally received the ones I found, maybe Aunt Alegera.  I contacted the museum in Nome .  Of course they wanted the moccasins, but they were very interested in pictures and information about his trip and the company that put together the expedition that sailed to Nome in 1923.  So, having pulled together the letters, pictures, contract, stock certificate and internet information for the museum, it seemed like a good time to get started on my overdue project of organizing the stuff for the family.  So you get his Alaska venture first.

Hal Bowman, September, 2006

Alaska

S.E. Bowman, July 1923
On the dock in San Francisco. Schooner Fred J. Wood in background.

Starlin Ermal Bowman (aka S.E., Ermal, Bo, Barnum) graduated from Purdue with a BS degree in Animal Husbandry in the spring of 1922.  Unattached and with no debts or obvious responsibilities he apparently didn’t have a great need to immediately settle into a permanent job.  He decided see the country.  As a Bowman he came by the travel bug legitimately.  His ancestors had wandered into Indiana two or three generations earlier probably traveling up Daniel Boone’s Wilderness Trail from Virginia , North Carolina or Tennessee .  His grandfather Bowman left grandma and the kids with the farm one summer and rode a horse to Vicksburg , Mississippi .  His brother had died during the Civil War siege there and my Great Grandpa Bill traveled down to check on the grave.  He brought home the storied Bowman Holly Tree that shades the Officers Club at the Crane Ammo Depot in Martin County – but that’s another story.

S.E.’s father, another Bill, was too young for the Civil War but he made family travel history in the 1870’s or 80’s by driving a team of mules from the home place in Indiana to Leadville, Colorado where the gold miners paid big bucks for teams. He sold the team and hopped a train home.  I never heard of any other travels by Grandpa Bill.  Maybe 1,500 miles with a team of mules was enough for a lifetime.

His older brothers had done their share of rambling and that probably gave him added incentive to keep up with them.  Three of his four brothers joined the Expeditionary Force in WW I.  The oldest, Doctor Ira, was a Captain in the Medical Corp.  Uncle Ira was stationed in Texas and was preparing his unit for overseas deployment when the war ended.  Uncle Sid, the veterinarian, was commissioned and served in France caring for horses.  Uncle Vic also went to France and requisitioned food for an aero unit.  (He also requisitioned my French Aunt Jane and lived happily ever after.) Uncle Alf stayed home and worked the farm during the war but he had cowboyed in Arizona after high school. His train was robbed on the way home.  News of the robbery was big stuff in the Odon paper and he returned a local hero.  Aunt Hazel, who later married him, said she had never seen anyone look so romantic when he got off the train. Anyway, I’m getting off track, but you get the picture about Bowman’s and travel.

Shortly after graduation S.E. and a friend from his hometown of Odon, Bob Deerman, bought a Model T and set off on the big rode trip of the day, driving to California ..  I’ve got pictures and a cursory diary from that journey (it took a month) which merits a chapter of its own.  They landed in Los Angles.  S.E. found a job as “Animal Husbandman”, aka ranch hand, working for Charles LeMoyne who owned a spread in what is now Fullerton .  LeMoyne was a silent movie star.  The cowboy heroes of the day, including Harry Carey, worked with the same villain in each of their movies.  LeMoyne was the villain in Harry Carey’s films.  The only story I remembering hearing about that job was a good trip to Sacramento where S.E. showed LeMoyne’s hogs at the State Fair.  That would have been during the winter of 1922-23.

Sometime that spring S.E. hooked up with the promoter A.H. Moore who was putting together an Alaska gold mining venture.  The plan was to sell shares in The Eldorado Development Company that would outfit a schooner with the necessary labor (shareholders), supplies and equipment for the operation in Nome .

Here are copies of the contract and stock certificate:

 

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