" I, Henry Eyring Bowman, was born Feb 3. 1859 in the Gruesbeck Blockin the 17th Ward in Salt Lake City, Utah. My father's name was IsaacBowman. He was born in Wooster, Wayne Co., Ohio, 29 July 1826. His ancestors were from Germany, and he was of that stock known as "Pennsylvania Deutch (Jacob Bowman and Catherina Robbins). "He was about 5 feet 10 inches high and weighed only 150 pounds. He had brown hair, which, was inclined to be curly. He had a good set of teeth, the upper being large.

Isaac Bowman arrived in Salt Lake City, June 1850, on his way to the California Gold Fields. Owing to the lateness of the season, his party remained in Salt Lake City for the winter. Father joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saint and did not go on to California in the Spring of 1851.

He was employed as clerk by the by the early merchants of Salt Lake City. Among them was Wm. Jennings and Livingston & Kincade. After several years he turned to school teaching at which he was very successful. In the course of about eight years, he had married three wives. Isaac married his first wife, Susan Arberrilla Alexander (1833-18??) on 18 February 1852, by whom he had seven children. He married his second wife, my mother, Bertha Odelia Louise Eyring (1836-1890), on January 17, 1857, who bore him three children (and then divorced early in the summer of 1868). He married his third wife Martha Jane Calvert (1840-1925) on November 1, 1857, who bore him eight children.

In the year of 1860 his father, Jacob Bowman, died. My father went back to Ohio to assist in settling his father's estate. He received about $20,000 as his share. With this money he bought a stock of merchandise and opened up a business in Ogden, Utah to which he moved his families. Aside from his business, he speculated a good deal. Among other things he bought an ox freight train, hired drivers, and engaged in freighting across the plains from the Missouri River. This adventure proved disastrous financially. This, coupled with his other speculations and unwise credit in his business, resulted in his losing all his property within about two years. With one remaining yoke of oxen, he moved his families 16 miles east of Ogden to Morgan County, about halfway between Mountain Green and Enterprise, on the north side of the Weber River, where he took up, or settled on quite a large farm. He erected one large room for each of his families and started in to build fences, break up land, take out irrigation ditches, and do the many other things incident to pioneering a home in an underdeveloped country. He had had no experience in farming so that the net result of these conditions was extreme poverty for 8 or 10 years.

In addition to the difficulties above indicated, commencing about 1865, his crops were destroyed three years in succession by grasshoppers. I well remember the last year; the grasshoppers were flying so thick that they obscured the sun, and once could not go out without some protection for the face, as the grasshoppers hit one with such force as to be very painful, especially if they struck one in the eyes. Just at this time, the seagulls appeared in countless numbers. I never saw any of them light at any time. They just flew through the air swallowing grasshoppers. When they became gorged, they would vomit while flying and repeat the operation. The quantity disgorgedat each time was about a tea cup full of dead grasshoppers. These gobs were dropping through the air so thick that one could not be out much without being hit by them. Soon the ground was thickly strewn with these little piles of dead grasshoppers.

Toward evening when the grasshoppers would light for the night, the gulls would disappear, flying westward toward the Salt Lake. Next morning when the grasshoppers took to the air, the gulls would reappear from the west and get busy. In less than a week, there was scarcely a grasshopper to be seen, and there were none after that. I remember this incident as clearly as though it happened yesterday.

The first year they appeared our grain was just heading out. They lit on it in a swarm and next morning there was nothing but bare stalks left. The leaves were consumed and the heads lay on the ground.

During the grasshopper year, father clerked for Eldridge and Clawson Salt Lake City in the winter time and in the summer made weekly trips 40 miles to Salt Lake City with his own and neighbors' butter, where he supplied hotels and private families. With the aid of his family,he practiced good methods and delivered a first class article in splendid condition and received the top price. He would bring back merchandise which Eldridge and Clawson supplied him wholesale and this made double profits, and in this way supported his families as best he could. I occasionally went with him on these weekly trips.

It was at this time the Salt Lake Tabernacle was being built, and what little time I could get away from father was spent watching the workmen. It was of great interest and wonder to me, and still is. We all worked hard, went barefooted and had only a limited amount of the bare necessities. I remember Bishop Hunter stopping overnight in the very late Fall when it was very frosty, and seeing us all barefooted, remarked in his characteristic way, "Beats the devil, beats the devil. Children born without shoes and stockings, beats the devil."

The last winter that father clerked for Eldridge and Clawson, he moved his first wife, Susan Alexander Bowman, and her children to Salt Lake City. She refused to return in the spring. He brought her children back to our Morgan County home. But within a few years they all ran away and went to their mother. Susan Bowman went out to a railroad town in Wyoming where she married a non-Mormon, a Mr. Shepard, without being divorced from father, and later moved to Park City, Utah. Her children all grew up without faith in the Gospel and became scattered until I do not know which are living or where any of them are.

In the summer of 1868 the union Pacific railroad was being graded. Father took contract to grade 3/4 of a mile running through his farm. Although I was only 9 years old I drove our team of old yellow horses on a scraper all summer. At that time the fur bearing mink were plentiful along the Weber River. For several years my two half-brothers and I contributed largely to the support of the family by trapping them.

Through an advertisement giving one of his brothers as reference, father got in touch with a patent medicine called Macedonian Oil, which was prepared in Cleveland, Ohio. For about a year, commencing in the winter of 1868, he traveled with his team and sold this remedy. He had splendid success and made more money than he had done in three years before, which somewhat relieved our extreme poverty. In those early days, it was customary for every one to ask advice concerning all of the affairs of life, from President Brigham Young. When father inherited money from his father in 1860, he consulted President Young about embarking in the mercantile business. President Young advised him to use the money to provide homes for his families and prepare himself for school teaching, Pres. Young told him he would be a successful teacher but would fail if he undertook merchandising. He disregarded his advise with the result before stated.

He was of a nervous temperament and very proud. He developed the habit of blaming all of his mistakes on others and found fault with and criticized every one. As a result, he developed into a chronic scold, so that it was next to impossible to live with him. He discontinued family prayers, giving as an excuse that he was possessed of rebellious wives and disobedient children. As a matter of fact, father's three wives were splendid faithful women, lived harmoniously together with their children, and did everything in their power to help and sustain him. I remember that many times, I strove with all my might to please him, but was never successful, The other children had the same experience. Because father was not in harmony with his Bishop and neighbors, he did not allow his family to attend Sabbath meetings or to participate in any Ward activities, either religious or social. I cannot associate a recollection of childhood as being in any way connected with my father. I grew up with a strong dislike for him which changed to sympathy and pity when I arrived at mature understanding.

In the early summer of 1868, just after we started work on the Union Pacific Railroad, mother separated from my father and received a complete divorce or release from Pres. Young. She went to live in the family of Abraham 0.Smoot in the 20th ward of Salt Lake City. During the winter of 1868-9, track was laid for the U.P. R. R. This made a market at high prices for hay and everything we had produced. The following years the section and other gangs of workmen on the railroad furnished a good market. The railroad installed Chinamen to do all section work. Their diet consisted largely of vegetables. They purchased all we could raise and would ship the surplus to their friends working on other sections. In 1871, father opened a little store at Peterson Station about 3/4 of a mile east, of our house. This he continued for about ten years. He then lost his farm on a mortgage and moved to Salt Lake City where he acted as collector for doctors and other professional men. He developed dropsy and died 1 May 1892. He was not very strong physically and had always been troubled with rheumatism."

Susan's parents were Randolph Alexander II (1802-1879) and Myzra Nix Alexander (1815-1880), married June 11, 1830, and had thirteen children. http://gedview.rulufandazuba.org/individual.php?pid=I2870&ged=new_ruluf.ged

Grandmother Susan Bowman Shepard, Mary McKenney's mother
-Photo courtesy of M. Lumley

Randolph Alexander family - photo taken 1899 in Salt Lake City, Utah
Front:  Lewis Andrus, Cleveland Jones (son of Henrietta), Jane Adeline Alexander Andrus Sproul, Laron Andrus;
Back: Andrew Sproul, Randolph Andrus, Rosannah (Laron's wife), Henrietta Andrus Jones http://gedview.rulufandazuba.org/individual.php?pid=I2871&ged=new_ruluf.ged
Jane Adeline Alexander is Susan Alexander's sister.

Children of Isaac Bowman and Susan A. Alexander Bowman

1 Isaac Robbins Bowman Born: 1 Feb 1853 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah Infant Died: 8 Dec 1853 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah

2 Catherine Malissa Bowman Born: 9 Mar 1855 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah Married: Died:

3 Margarette Elenora Bowman Born: 13 December 1856 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah Married: Died: 1899

4 Brigham Alexander Bowman Born: 31 October 1858 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah Married: Lune Romanta Snyder on 16 November 1879 in Park City, Summit, Utah Died: 15 June 1926 Copperopolis, Calaveras, California Buried: at Park City, Summit, Utah

5 Mary Alexander Bowman Born: 1 June 1861 in Ogden, Weber, Utah Married: George McKenney Died:

6 Anna Alexander Bowman Born: 1 June 1861 in Mountain Green, Morgan, Utah Married: Died: 2 November 1902

7 Heber Alexander Bowman Born: 19 December 1865 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah Married: Died:

Margaret Bowman McKenney Dakin
Daughter of Mary Alexander Bowman and George McKenney

"... [George W. McKenney's] dad's family in the East made a dreadful to-do about his having married a  western girl [Mary Bowman] and he became so disgusted with them that he vowed never to return to the East under any circumstances and even changed his name to McKennie.  [Margaret McK. Dakin] never new until 1907 when I [MMcKD] was married that the name ever had been McKenney.  Then Dad wrote that since all his people were dead he was going back to his right name!".....McKenney 

This info from a short bio compiled by Margaret Anna McKenney Dakin (1881 - 1968), the eldest daughter of George W. McKenney.  He had ended up in the west sort of by mistake and stayed there.

Bertha Odelia Louise Eyring Bowman Greenwood
1836-1890

"Bertha Odelia Louise Eyring Bowman Greenwood was born in Coburg, Saxony, Germany on 12 June 1836. Her people were Protestants and very religious. During religious troubles her father, Edward Christian Eyring, when a young man, took refuge in France and married a French lady, Ferdinandine Charlotte Caroline Von Blomberg on May 14, 1834. He later returned to Germany. This makes me 1/8 French. They were of the Gentry Class. Many of them had the office of Mayor and other official positions and quite a number were doctors and ministers. Her father was a well-to-do druggist in the city of Coburg. My mother had an older brother, Henry Carlos Ferdinand Eyring (1835-1902), and a younger sister, Clara Ann Julie Eyring (1841-1913). They had good school advantages and were reared in polite society. Both of my mother's parents died of cholera or black plague.

Children of Isaac Bowman and Bertha Odelia Eyring Bowman

1 Henry Eyring Bowman Born: 10 Feb 1859 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah Married: 1) Mary Bertha Gubler 2 Sep 1885 St. George, Wahington, Utah; 2) Wilhelmina Walser 27 Nov 1902 Col. Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico (div) Died: 30 May 1933 in Provo, Utah, Utah

2 Clara Eyring Bowman Born: 3 May 1862 Mountain Green, Morgan, Utah Child Died: 13 April 1867

3 Hyrum Eyring Bowman Born: 18 Feb 1864 Peterson, Morgan, Bowman Married: Esther Eleanor or Ella Herbert 13 March 1889 Died: 28 Feb 1916

On 22 March 1869, Bertha Eyring was sealed for time and eternity by President Young to William Greenwood of American Fork, Utah, in which place she resided until her death on June 7, 1890 The cause of her death was neuralgia of the heart.

By William Greenwood, she bore four children:
-Stephen Edward Greenwood, born 16 February 1870; d. 13 December 1874 American Fork, UT
-Bertha Emily Greenwood, born 20 April 1872,
-Charlotte Ferdinanda "Lottie" Greenwood, born, 14 November 1874; d. 31 March 1973; md. Albert Hansen.
-Abraham Owen Greenwood, born 5 February 1877; d. 1973; md Bertha E. Lineberry or Linabary on October 12, 1908.

William Greenwood had a wife and large family when mother married him, so that she embraced the order of plural marriage twice and was a firm supporter of that principle. Greenwood had married Alice Houghton Greenwood on May 30, 1843 in Davenport, Scott, Iowa. They had fourteen children.

Greenwood's second wife, deceased, Emma Julian Mercer Greenwood (1835-1865), had one son, William Julian Greenwood (1864-1913); md. Maren Sophie Johannesen on 3 July 1888.

William Greenwood was First Counselor to Bishop Leonard Harrington, a surveyor by profession, had a good farm and was secretary and bookkeeper of the American Co-op Store. He was a kindly man and provided fairly well for my mother. His first wife died about 1882, and he died of Bright'sDisease six years later."

Mary Jane Calvert Bowman
1840-1925

Mary Jane Calvert, daughter of William P. Calvert and Annie Hamaker Calvert, married Isaac Bowman on November 1, 1857 at Salt Lake City Endowment House. Utah. They had one child.

Their son William Calvert Bowman (1859-1944) married Lydia Loretta Squires (1863-1908) on January 3, 1883 at Wah Wah Springs, Beaver, Utah, the daughter of Lydia Lucina Abbott (1833-1919) and Edwin Saxton Squires (1820-1887). Lydia Lucina Abbott is the daughter of Abigail Smith (Captain James Brown's fifth wife) and Stephen Joseph Abbott (1804-1843).

Copyright 2001 www.OrsonPrattBrown.org