Barney B.[ranford?] Gowen [William Keating6, James5, William4, William3, Thomas2, Mihil1] son of William Gowen and Mary Harrison Gowen, was born at Combahee Ferry, in 1809 according to the 1850 Camden County census.
In 1820, at the simultaneous deaths of his parents, he was adopted by his maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Harrison, according to Mary A. "Mollie" Wingfield, who "brought the two younger children to Georgia, leaving William and Ann with the Gowen relatives in South Carolina." The "Gowen relatives" were not identified.
Barney B. Gowen and his brother, James Gowen, "orphans of Glynn County, Georgia" in 1821 received a land grant of 202.5 acres of land in Dooly County, Georgia from the state of Georgia. The land was described as Lot 141, District 12. Dooly County was later located in Wilcox County, Georgia upon formation of the new county.
Barney B. Gowen held warrant No. 155 in the 1827 land lottery of Georgia. He was described as "Barney Gowen, orphan, over 18, resident of Georgia over three years, Glynn County, April 20, 1827." He became 18 in 1827, the year of the lottery.
Barney B. Gowen of Glynn County purchased eight slaves for $1,000, August 8, 1828 from Andrew Paul and John M. Paul, both of Anson County, North Carolina, according to Glynn County legal records. At the same time he purchased from John M. Paul five additional slaves by the names of "Will, Binar, Andrew, Susie and Katie." A bill of sale covering the transaction August 18, 1828 was recorded by "Barna B. Gowen" in Glynn County Deed Book H, page 152.
Barney B. Gowen appeared as the head of a household in the 1830 census of Glynn County, page 264, according to the 1830 census of Georgia:
"Gowen, B. B. white male 20-30
white female 70-80"
The septuagenarian included in the household is identified as Elizabeth Harrison, his maternal grandmother.
Thomas F. Harrison, son of John Harrison and Elizabeth Harrison, was a resident of Glynn County. He received 202.5 acres in Wayne County from John Perry June 30, 1827. The will of Thomas F. Harrison of Glynn County, written November 3, 1829 and probated January 4, 1830 mentioned "James Gowen and Barna Gowen, nephews", according to Glynn County Will Book D. The will devised his horse and gig to his mother, Elizabeth Harrison.
The will of Elizabeth Harrison of Glynn County, was written May 28, 1837 and probated September 4, 1837, according to Glynn County Will Book D, page 343. The document read:
"State of Georgia, Glynn County
Know all men by these presents that I, Elizabeth Harrison, being in perfect sound mind and memory, but knowing the uncertainty of this mortal life, do make this my last will and testament in words and form as follows:
Item: I give and bequeath to my grandson James Gowen my negro fellow, Jacob.
Item: I give and bequeath to my grandson Barny B. Gowen my negro woman, Eve with her future increase, my negro boy, George and my boy, Moses.
Item: All my ready money which I may have in possession, say about seven hundred dollars, I request may be put out at interest and to be equally divided between the children of my late son, William Harrison as they may arrive at age, but if my Executors hereafter named think proper to make a distribution of the money among the children before they arrive at age, they are at liberty to do so.
Item: My three negroes by the name of Jimmy, Tumah, and Albert I request may be sold at public outcry to the highest bidders for cash and the proceeds of the same to be equally divided between the following children: Ann Gowen, William Gowen, the children of my late daughter Mary Harrison, and James Scott, Eliza Thomas, Mary Henning and Sarah Porter, the children of my late daughter, Sarah Harrison, six in number.
I also nominate and appoint and leave my two grandsons, James Gowen and Barney B. Gowen my lawful executors to carry fully into effect this my last will and testament, revoking all other wills by me made.
In testimony whereof I have this day signed my name this 28th day of May, 1837.
Elizabeth [X] Harrison
Signed, sealed and acknowledged in the presence of us.
V. Wooley, A. F. Wooley, Frances M. Scarlett, I.I.C.J.C.
Inventory and Appraisement of the Estate of Elizabeth Harrison, late of Glynn County, Georgia, deceased.
1 Jim, a negro man valued at $ 650.00
2 Tamar, negro woman valued at 75.00
3 Albert, negro boy valued at 550.00
4 One note of hand given by James Gowen
dated 16 April, 1837, on demand 552.75
5 One note of hand given by James Gowen
dated 3 April, 1837, on demand 100.00
6 Four Hundred 41 & 25/100 note 441.25
We certify upon oath that as far as was produced to us by the executors, the above and foregoing contains a true appraisement of the goods, chattels and credits of the Estate of Elizabeth Harrison, deceased to be best of our understanding and judgment.
Alex McDonald, Stephen W. Timmons, G. Houstown, Appraisers"
Barney B. Gowen appeared in the legal records of Camden County when he received a deed to 486 acres of land from John Talbird of South Carolina. The land conveyed by the deed was bounded on the east and the west by land already owned by Barney B. Gowen indicating that he was already a large landowner by the time he was 28 years old. The deed read:
"The State of South Carolina
Known all Men by these Presents, That I, John Talbird, in the state aforesaid, in the consideration of the sum of Four Hundred Dollars to me paid by Barney B. Gowen in the State of Georgia, have granted, bargained, sold and released, and by these presents, Do Grant, bargain, sell and release unto the said Barney B. Gowen all that tract of land situated in Camden County in the State of Georgia containing four-hundred and eighty-six acres, more or less, bounded on the south by the Great Satilla River, on the east by land owned by Barney B. Gowen, on the north by vacant land and on the west by land of Barney B. Gowen.
Witness my Hand and Seal, this thirty first day of March in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty seven and in the 61st year of the Independence of the United States of America.
John Talbird
Signed, Sealed and Delivered in the presence of: John Hazel, John H. Webb, Thos. Talbird."
Barney B. Gowen received other land from the state of Georgia. In 1837 he was granted 40 acres of land in McIntosh and Camden Counties, and later in Camden County he was granted 225 acres in 1850.
For $150 Barney B. Gowen gave a deed to Thomas S. Hopkins March 10, 1840 to 225 acres which he had received in a grant dated November 4, 1839, according to Glynn County Deed Book CC, page 548.
Barney B. Gowen was enumerated in the 1840 census of Camden County as "B. B. Gown, age 30-40," and regarded as a bachelor since he was the sole white member of the household. The report also indicated him as the owner of 13 slaves with 8 members of the household engaged in agriculture.
On July 1, 1844 Barney B. Gowen purchased from John C. Sheffield 150 acres for $130, according to Camden County Deed Book O, page 24. On October 1, 1844 Barney B. Gowen for $550 received a sheriff's deed to "chattels of Henry B. Turner," according to Camden County Deed Book O, page 52. Property purchased included "one negro woman named Gilley, age 35; one boy named Alonzo, 8; one boy named Richard, 3; one boy named Ernie, 6; one girl named Annie, 7 months; 75 head of cattle; 1 bay horse, age 6 years."
Barney B. Gowen purchased items from the estate totaling $21.39, March 4, 1850, according to Glynn County Deed Book E, page 162. On August 17, 1850 Barney B. Gowen appeared in District No. 9, Camden County, Household No. 50-50, page 755 in the 1850 census. He was shown as a single man, 41, a planter born in South Carolina with real estate valued at $2,600.
He received a deed February 20, 1853 to 500 acres for $1,000 from Gideon A. Mallette, according to Glynn County Deed Book P, page 216.
It is believed that he did not marry. He died before his brother, William W. Gowen and was buried at Old West Union Church Cemetery, Colesburg, Camden County, three miles south of Woodbine.
Barney B. Gowen, son of Barney B. Gowen and Josephine Dobbs Gowen, was married in Folkston, Georgia in Charlton County to Thelma Taylor about 1946. She was born August 23, 1926 to Richard Chandler Taylor who was born July 19, 1900 in Charlton County and Cora Bell Crews Taylor who was born there February 3, 1903. Thelma Taylor Gowen was transferred to a hospital in Jacksonville, Florida, March 7, 2004. Thelma Taylor Gowen had a tombstone in Sardis Cemetery.
A Barney Gowen, age 4, was enumerated in the 1850 census of Camden County, Georgia, living in Household No. 50-50.
James Gowen, [William Keating6, James5, William4, William3, Thomas2, Mihil1] son of William Keating Gowen and Mary Harrison Gowen, was born in Combahee Ferry about 1810. When the parents of James Gowen died, both on the same day in 1820, he along with his brother, Barney B. Gowen was adopted by his grandmother, Elizabeth Harrison, the widow of John Harrison. John Harrison had died 13 years earlier in Beaufort District in 1807, according to a letter written June 21, 1960 by Charles Latimer Gowen, his great-great-great grandson.
On April 25, 1827 "Elizabeth Harrison, widow of a revolutionary war soldier" received a land grant from the state of Georgia to land in Columbia County. Revolutionary service land grants did not require residence.
Elizabeth Harrison survived her husband until 1837 and died in Camden County where she had moved following the death of her husband 30 years earlier.
James Gowen, at age 8, and his brother Barney B. Gowen, "orphans of Glynn County," were the grantees of 202.5 acres of land in Dooly County from the state of Georgia in 1821. The land, described as Lot 141, District 12, Dooly County, was later located in Wilcox County, upon the formation of the new county. The orphans probably did not ever see the land, but simply had the deed recorded and sold the land, according to "Historical & Genealogical Collections of Dooly County" by Powell.
"James Gowen" described as "over 18, resident of Georgia for over three years" received a land grant in Glynn County in the Georgia land lottery of 1827. Date of the lottery was March 12, 1827. If this individual were, a generous allowance was made for his age to state he was "over 18."
He purchased a negro named Harriott and her child named Mary for $450 September 2, 1828 for $450 at a sheriff's sale, according to Glynn County Deed Book H, page 160. On June 10, 1831 he purchased a negro slave named John from John Coles for $275, according to Glynn Deed Book H, page 256. On September 17, 1830 he purchased 236 acres at a sheriff's sale for $250, according to Glynn County Deed Book H, page 260. "Barna B. Gowen" and Francis W. Scarlett were witnesses.
James Gowen was a member of the exclusive Camden Hunting Club October 18, 1832, according to its minute book. The group was composed of prominent citizens of the area, including two army generals.
James Gowen, was married to Anna Elizabeth Abbott about 1839, probably in Camden County. Anna Elizabeth Abbott Gowen was born in 1818 to George Abbott and Rebecca Bruce Abbott of St. Simons Island, Georgia. George Abbott was from County Galway and had settled in Frederica about 1805, according to E-mail written October 1, 1996 by Hugh Casement, Abbott descendant and researcher of Munich, Germany.
George Abbott was born April 26, 1789 to Thomas Abbott and Ann Tubbs Abbott at Mt. Bellew, Ballinasloe. Thomas Abbott was the son of George Abbott and Cecily Netterville Abbott of Castlegar, according to Hugh Casement. She was a daughter of Patrick Netterville, a merchant of Dublin.
George Abbott, who died in 1783, was a son of the Rev. Thomas Abbott of Castlegar, Galway. He was baptized in Dublin June 8, 1688. He wrote his will August 11, 1759 and died near Castleblakeney, County Galway in January 1762, at age 80, according to "Occurrences" by Pew. A memorial to him was erected in Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin
The Rev. Thomas Abbott is presumed to be the son of John Abbott, "alehousekeeper" who was educated in Trinity College, Dublin where he received his BA degree in 1707 and his MA degree in 1710, according to “Alumni Dublinenses.” In 1715 he was named curate of Athenry, County Calway.
Of George Abbott, Hugh Casement wrote:
"When he was 16, his mother's cousin, Robert Hadlock [who was very attached to her and had wanted to marry her] wrote from Georgia that his heart was failing and that he would make her eldest son his heir if she would send him there. George sailed to Georgia immediately and founded the branch of the Abbott family in Georgia. He was married February 2, 1808 in Connecticut to Mary Winget Wright, only daughter of the late Maj. Samuel Wright of Frederica and Rebecca Bruce Wright.
George Abbott became a vestryman in Christ Church at Frederica when it was established December 22, 1808, according to Patrick Demere of Florida. George Abbott was the owner of 30 slaves, according to the 1820 census of Glynn County."
Mary Winget Wright Abbott was born in 1792 to James Bruce Wright and Anne Burnett Wright. She was the daughter of Moses Christopher Burnett and Rebecca Moore Burnett. He was the son of Maj. Samuel Wright and Rebecca Bruce Wright. The major who was born about 1738 was vendue master of Savannah in 1790. He was married August 14, 1790 to Rebecca Bruce, daughter of James Bruce, a merchant on St. Simons Island who owned Orange Grove Plantation located two miles south of Frederica, Georgia.
Maj. Samuel Wright was a commissioner of Glynn County Academy and a member of the Georgia House of Representatives in 1791. He was elected to the senate from 1792 to 1798. He died May 4, 1808. A petition was filed February 23, 1829 for the division of the estate of Samuel Wright by James Bruce Wright and Mary Winget Abbott, according to "Glynn County Minutes of Ordinary," page 38.
George Abbott received a deed to Lot 17 and a residence in Frederica May 11, 1811 for $125 from John Morgan et al, according to Glynn County Deed Book G, page 115.
George Abbott died November 19, 1825, at age 34, and was buried at Christ's Church. George Abbott had a younger brother, Edmund Netterville Abbott who also came to Georgia, arriving about 1807. He was a merchant clerk in Frederica and was recorded as an alien in the War of 1812, age 16, according to "British Aliens in the United States During the War of 1812" by Kenneth Scott. He "sailed to the West Indies and was not heard of again." A still younger brother, Richard Wakely Abbott emigrated to Georgia after the death of his brother George Abbott. He was married in 1826 to Agnes Dunne.
A sister of George Abbott, Elizabeth Deborah Abbott was born September 20, 1807. She was married May 10, 1824 to Henry Evans, Esquire of Cross, County Galway. He was a cousin of Lord Carbery. Henry Evans emigrated to Quebec and became a farmer at Kingsey, Drummond. He was ordained to the ministry and died of a heart attack at Dunham, Quebec about 1845. Five sons and six daughters were born to them.
Mary Winget Wright Abbott was recorded in the 1830 census of Glynn County as the owner of 23 slaves. She died August 27, 1848 and was buried beside her husband. Two sons and four daughters, including, Ann Elizabeth Abbott Gowen, was born to them.
The estate of Mary Winget Wright Abbott was valued at $930.16 December 14, 1848, according to Glynn County Deed Book E, page 130. James Gowen and Alexander Scranton were appointed administrators of the estate of Mary Winget Wright Abbott January 8, 1849, according to Glynn County Will Book D. They continued as administrators of the estate in 1850, according to Glynn County Deed Book E, page 197.
James Gowen, unidentified, received a land grant of 347 acres in Glynn County, in 1838 and another one for 259 acres in Glynn County in 1842. In 1839 James Gowen was employed by Pierce Butler of Darien, Georgia, the largest slave owner in Georgia as an overseer. Butler owned Butler Island Plantation and Hampton Point Plantation on St. Simons Island which employed his 500 slaves. Butler had married Fanny Kemble, an English actress who later wrote a journal of her plantation life.
A portion of Camden County was appropriated in the formation of Charlton County in 1854, and James Gowen found himself residing in the new county when it was organized.
James Gowen, unidentified, appeared as the head of a household in the 1840 census of Chatham County, living in the city of Savannah, according to "1840 Index to the Census of Georgia" by Woods and Sheffield.
James Gowen apparently lived the remainder of his life in Charlton County and was buried there when he died, date unknown.
Children born to James Gowen and Anna Elizabeth Abbott Gowen, according to a letter written by Charles Latimer Gowen, his great-grandson, dated June 21, 1960 included:
George Harrison Gowen born about 1840
William Harrison Gowen born February 23, 1842
Mary A. "Mollie" Gowen born about 1843
Thomas B. Gowen born in 1844
Milton Gowen born about 1850
James Francis Gowen born about 1852
DeLancey William Gowen born about 1856
George Harrison Gowen, [James7, William Keating6, James5, William4, William3, Thomas2, Mihil1] son of James Gowen and Anna Elizabeth Abbott Gowen, was born about 1840, probably in Camden County. On November 3, 1857 he was married to his cousin, Elizabeth C. Evans, according to Glynn County marriage records. She was a daughter of Henry Evans and Elizabeth Abbott Evans of Quebec.
George Harrison Gowen later moved to Canada, according to Charles Latimer Gowen. It is reported that two children, James Gowen and an unidentified daughter were born to George Harrison Gowen and Elizabeth C. Evans Gowen. Nothing more is known of this branch of the family nor their descendants.
William Harrison Gowen, [James7. William Keating6, James5, William4, William3, Thomas2, Mihil1] son of James Gowen and Anna Elizabeth Abbott Gowen, was born in Charlton [Camden] County, February 23, 1842, according to Charles Latimer Gowen, his grandson.
From the Georgia State Confederate Pension and Record Department it is certified that William Harrison Gowen enlisted as a private in Company K, Fourth Georgia Cavalry [Clinch's] Regiment August 25, 1862. The record indicates that he was transferred to Company F of the same regiment early in 1863. Throughout the Civil War the Fourth Georgia Cavalry Regiment, under the command of Col. D. L. Clinch was unattached from an army corps, but was used in the defense of Savannah River batteries and other nearby military installations.
Gen. G. T. Beauregard's, Department of the military commander of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, Order No. 12 commended the Fourth Cavalry for its success in an engagement with the enemy near Jacksonville, Florida. The commendation mentioned Col. Clinch in the efficient discharge of his duties and also Maj. J. C. McDonald who commanded three of the five companies of that regiment who dismounted and served as infantry. The citation read that the "Officers and men of the fourth Georgia were eager and ready to meet the enemy on any and all occasions."
On March 20, 1863 the Fourth Georgia Cavalry, composed of 277 men and three pieces of artillery was stationed at Jacksonville. On March 27 of that year the Fourth Georgia faced the Eighth Maine Infantry Regiment and the Sixth Connecticut Infantry Regiment near Jacksonville, along with some 1,500 negro troops under "Montgomery of Kansas." On May 8, 1863 the Fourth Georgia remained under the command of Gen. Beauregard who had his headquarters in Charleston.
On July 2, 1863 Capt W. M. Hazard of Company G of the Fourth Georgia Cavalry Regiment filed a report to his headquarters at Savannah, concerning the part played by his troops in the repulse of federal naval craft attempting a landing near Brunswick, Georgia, according to "War Department Records," Series I, Volume 14, page 315.
His report states that his troops turned back the federal boats which moved from St. Simons Island in their landing attempt. Thwarted here, the federal boats turned up river in a foraging attempt. Capt. Hazard reports that his troops mounted and dashed up river to place themselves in defense of a salt factory which the federals threatened, again repulsing them. On that date the Fourth Georgia operated in the Georgia theatre under command of Brig. Gen. H. W. Mercer. Their status remained the same on July 30, August 31 and October 7, 1863.
In the fall of 1863 an ambitious Col. R. H. Anderson, who commanded the Fifth Georgia Cavalry Regiment, a parallel facility to the Fourth, attempted to disparage the Fourth in order to have himself placed in command of all of the Georgia cavalry regiments.
He addressed a letter to the commanding general describing for his benefit the Fourth, as follows, "no two commands are drilled alike, their internal organization is entirely different, their discipline is loose and irregular, their armament is bad and the equipment miserable. I verily believe that they could not march tomorrow from Savannah to Charleston without having 50% of their horses unfit for service."
The muster roll of the Fourth Georgia for June 1864, last on file, shows William Harrison Gowen still "present." The regiment was included in the command of Maj.-Gen. Sam Jones, CSA, when it surrendered to Federal forces. William Harrison Gowen was paroled at Thomasville, Georgia in mid-May of 1865.
William Harrison Gowen was married about 1870 to Anne Elizabeth Wright of Carteret's Point, near Brunswick, Georgia, probably in Glynn County. She was a daughter of Moses Christopher Burnett Wright and Ann Anderson Wright.
Their household was enumerated in the 1880 census of Glynn County, Enumeration District 57, page 25, as:
"Gowen, W. H. 38, born in Georgia
A. E. 27, born in Georgia
C. B. 9, born in Georgia, son
C. A. 7, born in Georgia, son"
William Harrison Gowen died February 23, 1890 at St. Simons Island, and was buried there in Christ Churchyard, Frederica, Georgia.
Children born to William Harrison Gowen and Anne Elizabeth Wright Gowen include:
Clarence Blain Gowen born January 29, 1871
Charles Moore Gowen born May 18, 1872
Clarence Blain Gowen, [William Harrison8, James7. William Keating6, James5, William4, William3, Thomas2, Mihil1] son of William Harrison Gowen and Anne Elizabeth Wright Gowen, was born January 29, 1871 at St. Simons Island. He owned an interest in Wright & Gowen, a ship chandlery in Brunswick. He became a civilian aviation pilot.
He was married February 14, 1900 to Edna Augusta Latimer of Fayette County, Iowa. She was born at Westgate, Iowa in 1877, according to DAR Vol. 95, page 65. The couple while on their honeymoon, visited with Mary A. "Mollie" Gowen Wingfield in Rome, Georgia. Clarence Blain Gowen maintained his residence in Fayette County from about 1900 until 1904 when he returned with his family to Georgia to make his home. Edna Augusta Latimer Gowen died of cancer in July 15, 1932 in Brunswick.
Clarence Blain Gowen was remarried in 1942 to Jo Gieger. He died January 6, 1956 at Ft. Lauderdale, Florida and was buried in Christ Church Cemetery on St. Simons Island. In November, 1961 Jo Gieger Gowen lived on St. Simons Island.
Charles Latimer Gowen, son of Clarence Blain Gowen, wrote an account his father's life and provided a copy for the Foundation:
"Clarence Blain Gowen was born at Monticello at Carterets Point in Glynn County, Georgia, on January 29, 1871. He was the son of William Harrison Gowen [born February 23, 1842 and died February 23, 1890] and Anne Elizabeth Wright Gowen [born November 1, 1849 and died September 13, 1934]. His paternal grandparents were James Gowen and Ann Abbot Gowen of Camden County, Georgia, and his maternal grandparents were Moses Christopher Burnett Wright and Ann Anderson Wright of Glynn County. He lived in the Dixville section of Brunswick with his parents for a while, but they must have moved to St. Simons Island by the time he was six or seven years old and perhaps earlier. His father became sawyer at the Hilton‑Dodge sawmill at Gascoigne Bluff and his mother operated the hoarding house at the Mills. The Hilton‑Dodge mill was one of the largest in Georgia and there were a number of supporting buildings including a manager's residence, a doctor's residence, a church, a rectory, a commissary and some residences for the white people who worked at the mill. The Dodge family had extensive land holdings on the Ocmulgee and Oconee Rivers, principally in Dodge, Montgomery, Wheeler and Telfair counties and the logs were cut and rafted down the Altamaha River to Darien and then towed to the mill on St. Simons for manufacture into lumber and timber.
The Reverend Anson G. P. Dodge of the millowners' family became a resident of St. Simons and Rector of Christ Church at Frederica, the church at the Mills and the church for the colored people at Jewtown. Since the only denomination which white people attended was Episcopal, both William H. Gowen and Anne Elizabeth Wright Gowen were communicants at Christ Church and attended services there or at the church at the Mills.
My father had one brother, Charles Moore Gowen, for whom I was named. He was born May 18, 1872 in Brunswick at the Dixville house I believe. He deserves separate treatment in our family history which I hope to prepare.
My father's parents lived at the Mills where his father worked and where his mother continued to operate the boarding house. The Hilton‑Dodge people had a school at the Mills for the white children that went through the primary grades and my father and Uncle Charlie attended. There was little planned entertainment for children so they made their own. To the southeast of the Mills was an area of high marshland and white sand. Since the sand was covered with salt water at least some of the time it was just like the beach on the ocean side of St. Simons and made an ideal playground which the boys called "the white sands." Jewtown where the negro children lived was about the same distance from the white sands and they played together. I've been told my father organized a baseball team of white and black boys. The white boys were tanned by the sun and my father was given the nickname of "Tar" by which his mother addressed him in my presence many times. Of course, there was fishing and crabbing off the docks at the Mills and a three mile walk through the woods took the Gowen boys to St. Simons beach where turtle eggs, quite a delicacy, could be found in season.
My father told me how he learned to swim. He must have been six or seven at the time. At Easter his mother had bought a new straw hat for him, and after church he was walking by the mill pond deserted for the holiday. A gust of wind blew his new hat into the mill pond. Knowing if he returned without it a whipping was in store he went into the water, paddled "dog fashion" to the hat and towed it to shore. During my boyhood my father was a fine swimmer with an excellent overhand stroke.
After Wright & Gowen was formed and the Steamer Hessie acquired my father's family was able to travel. My grandmother told me of a trip to Brooklyn by sailing vessel when she took my father and a colored girl a few years older than he to nurse him. The place in Brooklyn where they stayed fronted on a park and the colored girl would take father there to care for him. Having been well tanned on "the white sands" and the makeshift baseball diamond my father was quite dark and someone complained to Dixie Ma (our name for my paternal grandmother) about the care the colored girl was taking of "her little brother."
Uncle Charlie spent a year or two in Massachusetts, staying with the Fuller family and going to school. A member of the Fuller family was manager at the Hilton‑Dodge mill. I feel sure father resided at the Mills until he went to military academy. Moreland Park Military Academy was located in Atlanta, not far I think from the present Little Five Points. It was operated by Professor Neal, the father of Warren Neal who was director of the Highway Department during Governor Thompson's administration and later Engineer-Director of Glynn County. I believe my father attended Moreland Park Military Academy for several years until he graduated. Uncle Charlie went there, too, but whether father went there first or they went together I don't know. I remember seeing father's cadet uniform which Dixie Ma had preserved all in Confederate grey with large brass buttons and a swallow tail. Dixie Ma had great admiration for Professor Neal and he visited her at the Mills on several occasions.
Father told me that one of the pleasures of cadet life was to be invited to General Gordon's house near the Academy for syllabub. Another experience not so pleasant was attending the Methodist Church in the vicinity when the Bishop paid a visit. At the end of the regular service the Bishop arose, directed the ushers to close the doors and announced that he was there to raise the church debt. He directed that the collection plates be passed again for donations or pledges. A hymn was then sung while the "take" was counted, then the deficit that still remained was announced. The Bishop directed the plates be passed again and said they would all be there till the debt was satisfied. Eventually it was but according to father it took a long time.
Another of father's military academy experiences was hunting for minnie balls in the woods around Moreland Park. Thanks to the Battle of Atlanta they were in plentiful supply.
After graduation from Moreland Park Military Academy, father studied pharmacy at a school in Philadelphia which I believe later became a part of the University of Pennsylvania. His best friend and roommate there was Ed Ridenour who was later connected with a chemical company in the East. While in Philadelphia father became a talented bicycle rider, winning several bicycle races which were ten to twenty miles in length over the countryside. I've seen several gold medals he won. Father told me he always carried several lumps of loaf sugar and took one when he began to tire. Uncle Charlie attended Dentistry school also in Philadelphia, but I do not believe they were there at the same time.
After leaving pharmacy school father went to Sumner, Iowa, to visit Dr. W. L. Whitmire, the brother of his stepfather. He liked the country and decided to open a drug store in Westgate, a town of about 300 population on the Chicago Great Western Railway about ten miles southeast of Sumner. The store was in a wooden building next door to the post office. Hart Spears was the postmaster and was also Mayor. I do not know just when the drug store was opened, but I would suppose in 1897 or 1898. Father boarded with a Mrs. Ritchie who had two daughters. He told me that Mrs. Ritchie would wake the daughters at the beginning of the week by calling out: "It's Monday, tomorrow's Tuesday, next day's Wednesday, week half gone and nothing done! Get up, girls'" He also said that Mrs. Ritchie would bring in breakfast with an egg on his plate and then later call plaintively from the kitchen, "Mr. Gowen, will you have another egg?" Eggs in Westgate were a ready medium of exchange at the general store with groceries on one side and dry goods on the other.
Father made friends with Lou Farrand who had a drug store in Sumner. Lou married a girlhood friend of my mother's, a Miss Dickman, and this friendship continued for many years. Their son Rygel went to Culver Summer School and this was responsible for mother taking her savings and sending me there in the summer of 1921.
Drug stores were not too profitable in Iowa at the turn of the century for the medical doctors filled their own prescriptions. Removing this substantial revenue hurt. To help out the drug store father did some photography and started a weekly newspaper, the Westgate Gazette. I remember seeing the camera on a tripod, some back drops, photographic plates, etc. in the first floor of the building in Westgate when mother and I lived in the upstairs flat. I also remember the hand press on which the Westgate Gazette was printed, the cases of type that were set by hand and old issues also on the first floor.
In the latter part of 1898 or early in 1899 a telephone was installed in the Spears building. My mother, Edna Latimer, came into Westgate to see this new wonder and while there was introduced to the new druggist. A courtship developed and father's horse and buggy was often covering the four miles to the Latimer farm. They were married on St. Valentine's Day in 1900 on the farm and Dixie Ma made the trip from St. Simons to Westgate for the wedding. Mother told me Dixie Ma cut quite a figure with her new clothes by an Atlanta dressmaker. Dr. W. L. Whitmire was also at the wedding.
After a wedding trip to Brunswick and St. Simons father and mother returned to Iowa and lived in the flat above the drug store. My sister, Ardis Evangeline Gowen, was born there, but soon after they went to the Mills at St. Simons and Ardis died there in infancy on April 15, 1903 and is buried in the family plot at Frederica Cemetery. Sometime after that they moved to Brunswick and lived on the west side of Newcastle Street between Howe Street and Hanover Park in a house owned by Captain Russell, Uncle Duncan Wright's father‑in‑law. This must have been when father went in the wholesale drug business.
Dixie Drug Company, a wholesale drug company, was formed with father as manager. Uncle Mansie, Dixie Ma and several other Brunswick businessmen bought stock. In addition to the patent and proprietary medicines usual at the time, Dixie Drug manufactured some of their own. I remember seeing sometime after Dixie Drug was out of business a bottle of "Forma Libris", a formaldehyde preparation to be used as a disinfectant that said it was manufactured by Dixie Drug Company.
The venture was not successful and must have ceased business after two or three years. Father was in Iowa in 1904, because I was born on the Latimer farm January 31, 1904, but I am told I was taken to Brunswick in March of that year.
About 1904 or 1905 father purchased an automobile, a second‑hand American. I remember seeing it several years later. It had one seat for the driver and one passenger, no windshield and was cranked on the left side by a crank that was removed after the engine started. I think it had a two‑cylinder motor. Father started from Brunswick to drive it to Iowa. In some fashion he got to Chattanooga but that much of the trip convinced him it couldn't be done, so he put it on a river boat at Chattanooga and via the Tennessee, the Ohio and the Mississippi it reached Dubuque or Clinton, Iowa from where he drove it to Westgate or to Cedar Rapids. I was told father broke his wrist cranking it. I remember that he did drive it from Cedar Rapids to Westgate which must have been in 1907 or 1908.
There were from 1900 to about 1908 or even 1909 differences of opinion between mother and father as to whether they should live in Iowa or Georgia. Mother wanted to live in Iowa and I think father was agreeable, but Dixie Ma, Uncle Mansie, Uncle Charlie and Maje Whitmire wanted father in the family business in Brunswick. Wright & Gowen had moved the ship chandlery business from St. Simons to Brunswick and it was flourishing. The Steamer Hessie was a great success on the Brunswick‑Darien run, paying dividends as high as 200 per cent per year. On the other hand, there was great opportunity in Iowa. At one time in the early 1900s father had an opportunity to have the Ford agency franchise for two or three Iowa counties. His friend, Lou Farrand, was talking of a chain of drug stores and wanted father to go in with him. Father made the decision to go to Brunswick and by 1909 we were there and thereafter there was no indecision as to where our family would live.
Mother and I lived in Iowa in the flat upstairs in the building where the drug store had been for at least a year during 1906 and 1907. Father was working in Brunswick and mother used to get letters from him on Wright & Gowen letterheads. Their envelopes had a picture of a full rigged ship under full sail on the lefthand side. I would go next door to Mr. Spears to get the mail and if there was a letter with a ship on it I hurried home for I knew how happy mother would be to hear from father. I also remember carrying some old photographic plates in a "red wagon" on a Westgate sidewalk hunting direct sunlight to print the images on old proof paper. I remember my third birthday there when Eva Stahl, the shoemaker's daughter, brought me a pretty china plate with a sausage on it as a present. We had the plate for many years and may even still have it in the things we inherited from mother.
After Dixie Drug Company closed we must have moved to Cedar Rapids where father got a job with Churchill Drug Company, a wholesale drug house. I have only a few recollections about Cedar Rapids. One was a visit to a photograph gallery where they had a book with pictures of battleships. The other was when George was born. Our neighbors, the Heaths, had a daughter Gretchen about my age with whom I'd play. On May 13, 1907 Mrs. Heath took Gretchen and me on the street car to the end of the line to gather dandelion greens. When we got home I found I had a baby brother. When mother made bread, a weekly chore, she would make a little loaf for me in a baking powder can. Evidently, Saturday was baking day because when my parents slept late on Sunday I would creep down to the kitchen and get my little loaf of bread and take it back to bed to munch on.
Father had a boat for a while after he was married. It was named the "Edna" and was what was known locally as a launch but had been at one time a sail boat. It was disposed of before I was old enough to remember it, but I've been told my parents and I went out for rides on the Edna when I was a baby to find the cooler breezes on the water.
After leaving Cedar Rapids, father went to work at the Wright & Gowen store at Mansfield and Bay Streets in Brunswick. He was a clerk and I think was paid $125 a month. As a partner at first and a stockholder after incorporation, I suppose he was in fact head clerk. His stepfather, J. H. Whitmire, was manager and Uncle Mansie became President when Wright & Gowen became a corporation.
Father rented an apartment in the house of Ernest Dart, a Brunswick lawyer, who lived in the next house south of Dixie Ma on Albany Street. There was a vacant lot in between owned by Wright & Gowen. The rear of this lot had a barn and a fenced lot where the Wright & Gowen drays and the horses that pulled them were quartered there after store hours. Mrs. Ernest Dart was formerly Nellie Forsyth and she was one of those for whom the tow boat "Angie & Nellie" was named. They had two girls, Angie, my age, and Eleanor, my brother George's age. Eleanor had the nickname "Topsy" because she had been ill as a baby and the doctor prescribed toddies for her which were made from Tip Top whiskey. My sixth birthday was celebrated at the Dart house, and my mother had somehow managed to get some fresh strawberries, and we had strawberries and cream to celebrate. The strawberries probably came on a "fruiter," one of the small sailing vessels that frequently came to Brunswick from the Bahamas or Cuba loaded with fresh fruit, principally bananas, oranges and pineapple. Father would often bring home a whole bunch of bananas which was hung on the screened porch and we children could pull one off the stem whenever we wanted.
Probably as a result of his Iowa negotiations with Ford Motor Company, father got the Brunswick Ford agency for Wright & Gowen, perhaps as early as 1910. Father did the automobile selling and there were buyers ready whenever a boxcar load arrived on the side track on Bay Street in front of the store. I don't remember just how it came about, but in some trade Wright & Gowen acquired a Peerless automobile which was stored in the Wright & Gowen barn behind Albany Street. We were all taken for a ride in the Peerless which seemed huge compared to the early Fords. I remember access to the rear seat was through a door which was in the middle of the back of the car.
In 1910 we moved to a house father rented on Albemarle Street at the corner of Wolf Street where we lived until 1912, when father purchased the house at 1302 Dartmouth Street. I think Gladys' arrival precipitated the move from the Dart apartment. While living in the Albemarle Street house, Brunswick had the first hurricane that I remember. It didn't seem to be too much to me, but my grandparents in Iowa were quite upset when it was reported that "Brunswick, Georgia, was cut off from all communication." The telephone and telegraph wires out of town were all down. Other damage was minimal.
The Dartmouth Street house required a good deal of work both inside and out. It had beautiful heart pine floors, two sitting rooms, a wide hall both upstairs and down, a dining room, butler's pantry and kitchen. There were three large bedrooms, a small "hall" bedroom, a small sewing room and a bath upstairs. There was a lattice porch east of the kitchen and a porch in the rear extending from the kitchen west behind the back sitting room. There was a front porch along the entire northern part of the house. There were sliding doors between the two sitting rooms so they could be opened and made one room for a large gathering. In cold weather one room could be closed off to make heating easier. There were fireplaces in the sitting rooms, the dining room and in each of the three large bedrooms. In the kitchen mother had a large stove, half of which was wood and half gas. We heated with pine and oak wood and anthracite coal. Mother wouldn't have soft coal because it was too dirty.
Originally the Dartmouth Street lot was 90 by 90 feet, but father bought the 90 by 90 feet next south along Albany Street and built a combination woodshed and tool house with a servant's toilet on the east side of the new lot. There was a one car garage when father bought the place. Later this was enlarged for two cars and a play house all on the Albany Street side. At the extreme rear was a chicken yard. The rest was in garden, a grape arbor and a children's play area with a swing hanging from a large live oak. The house was about three feet above the ground on brick pillars. This made an additional storage area and a place for children to call out doodle bugs. We would chant, "Doodle, doodle your house is on fire" and then blow into the depression that indicated a doodle was there and sure enough out would back the doodle.
Father was very handy with tools and kept a large assortment in his workshop in the tool house. At one time he built a rig to saw wood. He had a circular saw on a drive shaft with a bench on which to place a small log. There were rollers with belts from them to the drive shaft. The automobile was backed up so the rear wheels ran against the rollers. When the auto was put in gear this "Rube Goldberg" worked well, turned the saw at high speed and cut pitch pine and oak into stove or fireplace lengths.
On another occasion later when I was in high school father took me and three boy friends to Jacksonville to see a high school basketball game. The road wasn't paved and in Camden County our Dodge broke down. There was a chain inside the engine housing that ran the generator. This chain broke and jammed the drive shaft stopping the engine. Father went to work. He always had an ample supply of wrenches and other auto tools in the car. The car was jacked up in front. He got under, loosened the engine pan which released some of the pressure the broken chain was applying to the drive shaft. The crank was inserted in the front of the car and we were able to move the engine enough to get an end of the chain out where it could be reached and the chain taken out. The engine pan was screwed back and we went on to Jacksonville on the storage battery arriving before game time despite the delay of a couple of hours. That no one came along while the repair work was in progress shows what auto travel between Brunswick and Jacksonville was about 1919.
After Wright & Gowen lost the Ford agency, they got the Dodge agency as of January 1, 1915 and they kept it several years. The Hudson agency was added I suppose about 1920. Father was the auto salesman, but Wright & Gowen had no garage or repair service. The automobile business at Wright & Gowen was always a sideline and never considered valuable enough to give it a showroom or have a repair service. To have garage service for the people he sold automobiles to father became a silent partner with Nick Young in Young's Garage which was located in a wooden one story building on the east side of Newcastle Street between Mansfield and Howe Streets. The venture was a financial disaster for the "silent partner" and the partnership dissolved.
It was about 1920 that the Brunswick Laundry and the Coca‑Cola bottling franchise (which had come under one ownership) became for sale. Father wanted to buy them but mother vetoed the idea because she didn't believe the bottles were properly cleaned. L. "Pap" Andrews bought them and sold the Coca‑Cola plant to Mr. Millard Copeland and the laundry to someone else.
After World War One the Port of Brunswick declined rapidly. Lumber was no longer exported. Rosin and turpentine were not in great demand and the importation of kainite and nitrate was falling off as the boll weevil killed "King Cotton." The ship supply business was reduced to supplying shrimp boats principally. The "Piggly Wiggly" style of marketing groceries was supplanting the old commissary style. While the oil refinery built by Atlantic Refining Company was bringing in tankers from Texas and Mexico they bought little in Brunswick. The Florida boom was soon to gain spectacular proportions and take capital out of Brunswick for investment there. This was the picture at Wright & Gowen when Maje Whitmire died and father became its manager. In 1920, incidentally, I began my senior year at Glynn Academy.
All of the years that father was at Wright & Gowen he worked long hours. He opened the store at 7:00 a.m. and closed it at 6:00 p.m. He came home for the mid‑day meal which was some of the time our main meal and at others only a light lunch. His social life was limited. My mother's upbringing verged on the Puritanical. Neither she or her sister were permitted to dance or play cards. Father, before his marriage, I've been told was an excellent dancer and was much in demand at the weekly dances at the first St. Simons Hotel in the 1890's. I don't think father ever played cards though his mother and brother both played a good game of bridge and Dixie Ma and Maje sometimes played pinochle. My mother was very religious and a Methodist when she was married. Father had been raised in the Episcopal Church on St. Simons though I don't believe he was ever a member. After their children were old enough for Sunday School father and mother joined the Presbyterian Church in Brunswick and George, Gladys and I joined too as we reached ten or twelve years. Mother took a great interest in church work, father little or none. Her close friends were in her church. Father's friends were in the business world. While I think my parents were always very much in love, the difference in their upbringing precluded much activity outside the home and business, though mother founded the Parent Teachers Association in Brunswick and was active in the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Times were really hard in Brunswick in the early 1920s and Wright & Gowen continued downhill. This was not in my opinion the result of father's mismanagement, but rather because Uncle Mansie, Uncle Charlie and he continued to try to operate a ship chandlery without shipping instead of moving the business into some other field or liquidating it. Even though money was scarce it was always anticipated that I should go to college when I finished Glynn Academy. As I've mentioned, my mother went into her savings to send me to Culver Summer School in the Black Horse Troop. It was a time of homesickness for me but it certainly made adjustment to college life much easier. I know what sacrifices my parents made to send me to the University of Georgia and how much the $50 per month sent to me took out of the family budget. Father was generous and I don't think every turned me down for anything I really needed. In my junior year at Georgia we were having a house party at my fraternity for "Little Commencement" and I needed some extra money. I wrote father about what I needed and to add emphasis I closed by saying "in fact my last two cents goes for the stamp for this letter." By return mail I received a check for the $15 I'd asked with a letter that read, "Dear Ted, [my family nickname] I don't know what you did with the rest of your money, but you made a damn good investment with your last two cents."
When I finished law school, was admitted to the bar and fortunate enough to be offered a junior partnership with Judge C. R. Conyers, father offered to help me get a better car. The Model T Ford I brought back from Athens wasn't up to the standard he thought a young partner in a Brunswick law firm should drive. He located a Hudson Speedster second hand in Vidalia and we went up and bought it one Sunday. He endorsed my note for $1,000 at The First National Bank to pay for the car. We thought it wouldn't take long for me to pay for it, but the Florida boom was draining Brunswick; the Great Depression followed and the car was long gone before the note was paid. Father always said I might not have successfully courted Evelyn with the old Ford so it was a good investment. The Hudson was stolen while we were on our honeymoon, and it was back to a Ford for us, but a Model A this time.
In 1929 or 1930 my mother found she had cancer. Father did all that anyone could do for her. She went to Atlanta where Dr. Floyd McRae pronounced it inoperable. At the Steiner Clinic X‑ray treatment did little good. Two visits were made to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota where we were told nothing could be done. On July 15, 1933, mother passed away and father asked Evelyn and me and our nearly three-year-old daughter Anne to move into the house at 1302 Dartmouth Street to make a home for him which we did, moving from the Mallard apartment on the second floor of 800 First Avenue.
I'm sure this was a trying time for Evelyn but she undertook the task and carried it out nobly. Father never complained, let us run the house in our own way and contributed I'm sure more than his share of the expenses.
The next year Dixie Ma passed away on September 13, 1934 and on April 7, 1935 Uncle Charlie died of a heart attack in his car in front of 828 Albany Street where he lived. Father inherited their combined estates and for the first time in his life was by Brunswick standards comfortably fixed. One of the first things he did was to take flying lessons from Francis [Sam] Baker a distant cousin. As soon as he earned his pilot's license he purchased a Piper Cub. The air field then was Redfern Field, where Redfern Village is at present on St. Simons. Father loved to fly and was quite good at it. He was 65 when he received his pilot's license and continued to fly until just a few years before his death on January 6, 1956.
Father had inherited two cottages in front of the Beacon on St. Simons. He owned two lots on East Beach he had purchased to help Presbyterian Conference Grounds, which was planned for East Beach in 1928 but which failed early in the Depression. He engaged J. M. Kent, a builder he liked, to erect a cottage on the East Beach lots, so he would have a cottage to give to each child. He thought an architect was superfluous and had Kent prepare a plan. He did adopt a suggestion or two from Evelyn. Fortunately, Quisie Fleming was cutting some virgin timber on Oak Grove Island and manufacturing it into lumber and father bought from him so the lumber in the East Beach house was heart pine as was that in the other two cottages. While Kent's "masterpiece" was not very attractive from the outside it was quite livable inside.
While we knew father planned to give each child a house we didn't know who would get what. Just before Christmas in 1935 father asked me to prepare three deeds: one to Gladys for the Cottage he had inherited from Uncle Charlie; one to George and Sarah for the cottage he had inherited from Dixie Ma and the East Beach cottage to Evelyn and me. I took our deed to Kentucky where we were spending Christmas, wrapped it in holiday fashion and put it with the presents. It was a pleasant surprise for Evelyn who now for the first time had a place of her own.
In 1938 the Post Office Department was anxious to encourage and publicize air mail. While it had been in existence for over ten years the public didn't trust it. If business people used air mail they almost always sent a confirmation by regular mail. All of this prompted the Post Office Department to establish an air mail week designed to promote air mail usage nationwide. Private pilots were asked to fly air mail between points where there was no regular service. Father flew his route on May 19, 1938. He left the airport on St. Simons at 6:00 a.m. with seven pounds of air mail. The pouch was handed to him by Lewis L. Wolfe, postmaster at Brunswick and was dispatched to Macon. Evelyn and I, George and Sarah and Gladys and Bo were on hand to see him off. His first stop was Alma, Georgia where he arrived at 7:30 a.m. and where he picked up five pounds of air mail. He departed Alma at 7:35 a.m. and arrived at McRae at 8:30 a.m. where he picked up four pounds of air mail. He departed McRae at 8:40 a.m. and arrived at Cochran at 9:20 a.m. where he picked up three pounds of air mail. He departed Cochran at 9:30 a.m. and arrived in Macon at 10:12 a.m. the completion of the route. He returned to St. Simons that afternoon.
The ability to give such detail about Father's flight of the air mail is due entirely to his great‑grandson, John Spalding. John spent August 1981 in the Washington, D. C. office of Congressman Wyche Fowler as an intern. I asked John to try to find out from the Post Office Department when the trip was made. The Post Office Department couldn't help, but at National Archives he found a file of all Georgia air mail flights during the week of May 15, 1938 and in it was the flight log of Clarence B. Gowen on May 19, 1938. It bears the signatures of four postmasters and one assistant postmaster as well as the familiar signature of my father "C. B. Gowen." John sent copies of that portion of the file to me. My half‑sister Jean Randolph recently visited us and told me that she has the plaque presented to father by the Post Office Department to commemorate his flight. It is well John found the data because my recollection was faulty. I thought the flight went to Atlanta, but evidently Macon had regularly scheduled air mail and the flight ended there for that reason.
Air Mail Week was well publicized and many of the letters Father carried were sent to the post offices where he received mail to be sent on the flight to become collectors items. We mailed letters that went on the flight for Anne and Bootie. In addition to Father'S air mail cargo I might add that he took a five gallon can of aviation gasoline that he had strained himself because he didn't trust the gasoline at the McRae field. He knew he would have to refuel on the trip and preferred to take his fuel with him. I am not sure which of his planes he had at this time but it was either a Piper Cub or an Aeronca Chief. Both were single engine planes capable of carrying a pilot and one passenger. Harry Smith, a son‑in‑law of George True of St. Simons, was an aviation mechanic and maintained Father's plane. His good care did much to further Father's safety record.
Father only had one serious accident. He was attempting to land on a golf course in Blackshear when he crashed destroying the plane, a Piper Cub. Fortunately it didn't catch fire and Father was able to walk away. He arrived home pretty well "bummed up" but with no broken bones. After a day or so in bed he was up arranging to buy a new plane.
Father's only other accident was in connection with the flight of a group of private pilots who were meeting in Atlanta to fly around the state. Father flew to Atlanta to meet the group without incident. They took off for Augusta and were to follow the lead plane there. Unfortunately the others were faster than his plane, and they were soon out of sight. Father tried to find a railroad to follow but realized he was off course and began looking for a place to land. He found a good grassy field and circled it and it looked all right so he came down. As he approached he saw a few bushes in his path but didn't think them serious enough to go up again and pick a new place, so he let the plane run into them. He found these bushes marked the places where the rocks had been gathered from the field and his still revolving propeller struck a stone and bent it so it couldn't be used. His plane was reported missing and we had some anxious moments until he phoned he was all right. Father got a new propeller from Atlanta and while he missed the festivities in Augusta and Savannah planned for the group of pilots, he did reach Savannah in time to take off for St. Simons with the group and land with them before the homefolks. Again my immediate family were there to greet him.
At least by 1941 Father was a member of the Civil Air Patrol which was organized as part of the preparedness of the United States because of the war in Europe. Our entry in the war on December 8, 1941 brought activity in the Civil Air Patrol on St. Simons. Father began patrolling the coast looking for German submarines which by early 1942 became active off Georgia. Several ships were sunk off Brunswick and one tanker at least was sunk by gunfire by a submarine off Little St. Simons. The planes of the Civil Air Patrol were equipped to carry bombs on their patrols and I've been told my father took off with a bomb attached to each wing to patrol off shore. The ground crew breathed a sigh of relief when he landed safely and the bombs were removed.
Later during the war my sister Gladys' husband "Bo" was in the Navy and stationed at Charleston. Father decided to fly over and visit Gladys. He filed a flight plan calling for a direct flight from Brunswick to Charleston, but after passing Savannah, the weather being nice and pleasant, he decided to detour and fly over the islands and beaches of South Carolina. When he landed in Charleston he was met by Army officers who lit into him. It seems he had been reported by the air watchers along the coast as an unidentified plane and had caused considerable commotion. He told me the officer in command of the "reception committee" really let him have it. The result was that he flew back to Brunswick and put his plane in storage saying "there are too many regulations now."
Our parents liked to travel by automobile and always took the three children along. Usually the trips were to Iowa, hut the routes there and back were varied to take in many cities, historical shrines and other points of interest. Some of these places that I remember were the battlefields at Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge outside Chattanooga; Lincoln's birthplace at Hodgenville, Kentucky; Mammoth Cave; the Field Museum and the Art Institute in Chicago; The Little Brown Church in the Wildwood and the Ice Caves of Decorah in Iowa; the Capitol, Washington Monument and Smithsonian Museum in Washington; Mount Vernon and Manassas battlefield in Virginia and the Museum of Natural history and the Flatiron Building in New York to name a few. One of the New York highlights for the children was a subway ride to Coney Island.
It was on December 6, 1941 that my father told me that he had married again to Jo Geiger whom we had not known. I suggested that we should vacate the house at 1302 Dartmouth Street and he agreed. We were moved in a few days.
Father and Jo lived in Brunswick for seve