D. J. Bowen's later years, from Arbon bishop to ward teacher at 92

David John Bowen, known in the papers as D. J. and probably the "John Bowen" of the Arbon columns, came over the mountain from Samaria in 1892 and became the valley's first postmaster and the presiding elder of its first congregation. His own account of those beginnings is retold in D. J. Bowen tells the Pilgrim how Arbon began; this post follows his later years, from a second marriage in 1912 to a church photograph printed in February 1954, when he was 92.

A second marriage and a bishop's call

Bowen's first wife, Mary S. Smith, had died in May 1905, as the Press recalled in 1917. In May 1912 the Ogden Evening Standard and the Salt Lake Tribune listed a marriage license issued at Ogden on May 22 to David J. Bowen of Arbon, Idaho, and Margaret F. Young of Perry, Utah. Maggie Young was then 51, a daughter of Thomas C. and Mary Hay Young, and had long been active in the Perry ward.

In January 1917 the Deseret Evening News reported that David J. Bowen had succeeded Edward H. Davis as bishop of the Arbon Ward. He was not the first bishop; Joseph N. Arbon had been ordained in 1908.

In April 1919 the American Falls Press named Mrs. D. J. Bowen, with E. H. Davis, as the Arbon district's Victory Loan workers, with a quota of $4,000.

That May there was a death in the Bowen home at Arbon. The Box Elder News Journal reported that William Young of Perry, probably Maggie's brother, had gone up to Arbon on May 11 to help Mr. Bowen with his farm work. On the Wednesday before he died he complained of feeling slightly unwell. The Bowens went to Pocatello on business the next morning, leaving the house to the children and Mr. Young, and on the Friday morning a Bowen boy, not named in the notice, went to his uncle's bed and found him dead. The paper wrote that he had died peacefully in the night; he left one brother and one sister. His remains were brought to Brigham City, the funeral was held in the Perry tabernacle, and D. J. Bowen was one of the speakers. The notice printed the host's name as "W. J. Bowen", probably a slip for D. J.

Bishop John Bowen

During a five-day storm in December 1919 the Press reported 28 and 32 degrees below zero at D. B. Ripley's at the east end of the valley and "at the home of John Bowen on the extreme west end." In April 1920 it printed the ward's meeting times as sent in by "Bishop John Bowen." The Arbon items never say that John Bowen was D. J., but every detail fits.

That July his mother came to visit:

"Grandma" Bowen, mother of Mr. John Bowen, is visiting at the Bowen home here.

The Bowens had been to Logan and other points in Utah and brought her home with them.

In the fall of 1921 the Bowens began to leave the valley. The Press reported on November 4:

Mr. and Mrs. John Bowen went to Logan, Utah, Tuesday. Mrs. Bowen will remain there for the winter, and indefinitely. Mr. Bowen returned to his home here for awhile, and will later join Mrs. Bowen.

In mid-December he left for Logan, "where he will remain indefinitely." His son Brigham died at Arbon the following May; that loss is told in the site's Stories. In November 1923 the Arbon column reported that he spent a weekend with his daughter, Mrs. Jack Price, and her family on West Fork. She was probably the Stella Bowen whose marriage to Jack Price in 1913 is the earliest wedding on record held in the valley.

Maggie Bowen's death

Maggie Young Bowen died at Pocatello on Friday morning, January 10, 1930, at 69. The Box Elder News Journal wrote that she had long worked in the Perry ward, in the Primary, the Mutual Improvement Association and the Relief Society, and that since her marriage she had lived in Idaho and stayed active in church work there. The Salt Lake Telegram has the couple moving to "Almo" after the wedding, probably a slip for Arbon. Her body was taken to Brigham City, her funeral was held in the Perry ward chapel on January 14, and she was buried in the Brigham City cemetery. Her husband and her brother, T. C. Young of Brigham City, survived her.

Seventy-five years a ward teacher

Bowen spent his last years in Pocatello, where the church papers noticed his long service as a ward teacher, one of the members who regularly visited the families of a ward.

In October 1944 a Deseret News church notice gave him, at 83, a record of 64 years as a ward teacher. He had begun at 18 in the Samaria Ward and had served in seven wards and branches in Idaho, Wyoming and Utah. The notice said he had been called back to Arbon from Logan by the Curlew Stake presidency and was bishop there from 1916 to 1922. It also called him the oldest brother of Elder Albert E. Bowen, and said he was a retired farmer who had raised ten children.

On February 27, 1954, the Deseret News printed his photograph with his bishop in the Thirteenth Ward of the North Pocatello Stake, on his completing 75 years of ward teaching. (One scanned line reads 79; the text and the 1944 count point to 75.) Of his first visits, made at 17 or 18 in Malad Valley, he recalled being "rather timid."

At 92 he was living with his daughter, Mrs. John D. Price, probably the Mrs. Jack Price of the 1923 visit. He still made his rounds with his "young" companion, Roy Kirkman. The two made their calls by car, and Kirkman helped him in and out of it and took him by the arm to each door. The paper said they rarely failed to turn in a full report, every family on their list visited. Asked how he was, he would answer "First rate," with a twinkle.

The accounts do not agree on how long he was bishop. The 1954 article gives fifteen years. A garbled sentence in the Press biography of 1917 mentions the Arbon Ward of 1908 and says he was made bishop. The 1944 notice gives 1916 to 1922, and Andrew Jenson's ward history, printed in 1935, places him after Joseph N. Arbon and Edward H. Davis. He died in 1955, the year given in the site's Bowen family album.

The story as reported

Deseret News, February 27, 1954, page 32. The original article is under copyright; this is our own report of what it said.

POCATELLO — David J. Bowen, 92, of the Thirteenth Ward, North Pocatello Stake, had marked 75 years as a ward teacher for the Church. Bishop Harry M. Hirsch of the Thirteenth Ward congratulated him, and Bowen's teaching companion, Roy Kirkman, joined them for a photograph.

Bowen made his first visits as a ward teacher at 17 or 18 in Malad Valley. Looking back, he said his youth had made those first calls an uncomfortable time; he had been "rather timid" then and unsure he knew enough to do the job.

In 1954 he and Kirkman, a much younger man, went out each month by car and seldom turned in less than a complete report for their families. On these rounds Kirkman gave Bowen a hand getting into and out of the automobile and steadied him by the arm on the way to each door. Once inside, Bowen carried the visit himself, drawing on long experience that included service as a bishop. By his own account to other members, sickness had never once kept him home from his teaching rounds. When friends asked how he was, he usually answered "First rate," with a twinkle.

The paper noted that he had not always been well. Serious illness had struck him a number of times over the years, along with three bad accidents, and his autobiography gave divine protection the credit for his living through them.

Bowen's birth came on December 6, 1861, in Salt Lake City's First Ward; when he was nine, the family relocated to Malad Valley. There the boy shared the heavy work of his father's farm along Henderson Creek, near Malad, and once grown he split each year between a schoolroom in the cold months and the fields in the warm ones. The Logan Temple was the setting for his 1884 marriage to Mary Sophia Smith.

Later moves took him to Wyoming's Salt River Valley and to Spanish Fork and Eureka, Utah. He settled on Bannock Creek in Arbon Valley, Idaho, in the spring of 1892, claiming the land by squatter's rights. Arbon's newly organized branch sustained him as the first man to preside over it, and once the Arbon Ward took its place he led it as bishop, for 15 years by the paper's count.

Of his ten children, eight were girls and two were boys. Pocatello had been home for some years, and he now shared a house with his daughter, Mrs. John D. Price. Among his siblings was Albert E. Bowen, a younger brother who had sat on the Council of the Twelve and had since died.

On this site: the first harvesting machines, among them Bowen's dropper; the Arbon Ward's first thirty years; and the Bowen family album.

D. J. Bowen's later years, from Arbon bishop to ward teacher at 92

A second marriage and a bishop's call

Bishop John Bowen

Maggie Bowen's death

Seventy-five years a ward teacher

The story as reported

Sources

Connected histories

Pauline and West Fork

Edward Henry Davis & Esther Rebecca Arbon