Heritage Column for November 24, 2005
By Fred Anderson
Richard M. Bowman is a walking encyclopedia of family lore, local history and Virginia’s past. He has researched his family back to the 1780s and can give the names and dates of long-ago ancestors off the top of his head. When asked if he has a photographic mind, he only admits to possessing “instant recall.”
He has enjoyed history since the fifth grade. “The teacher spoke of the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages and I learned about Alexander the Great and that man who carried the herd of elephants over the Alps–Hannibal. I learned about the Roman conquests. I learned how to track from the ancient days to the rest of the road where we are residing.”
He absorbed much of what he knows from his beloved grandmother, Nancy Wyatt Adkins Bowman. Born in 1856, she lived through a remarkable slice of Southern history from slave days to the Brown vs. Board of Education decision which ultimately would end school segregation. She died in 1954 so she never actually witnessed integration.
In her seventies she began sharing history with her grandson. He remembers that she saw the smoke billowing up from the conflagration when Richmond burned in 1865. She told about the Union troops that marched through Charles City County on their way to lay siege on Petersburg. She said that the children were told to lie down on the floor to keep from being hit by a bullet. When Richard Bowman repeats the stories he becomes living history. Now he is the one in his seventh decade who is telling the stories.
“Mamma Nancy” also instilled in her grandson the best gift of all. She planted seeds which led to his eventual conversion. She talked of her own childhood in which she had never had the privilege of going to church yet she had heard someone say that they “knew Jesus.”
“As a child, in her mind she thought they were talking about an individual whom they actually knew,” explains her grandson. “The name stuck in her mind and at about age 12 she started to try to pray. She told me, ‘Son, I was in the woods gathering wood for cooking and I continued to call on that name of Jesus and in that woods that evening something spoke within and told me to go serve and I will go with you. I told every bush in the neighborhood, ‘Jesus, precious to my soul.’ ”
Bowman adds, “I was just four years old then and she was about 77; but as a child, I was enthralled and I can remember tears streaming down her face as she related her experience; and she said, ‘Son, they baptized me in November of that year and there was a skim of ice over the pond.”
Richard Bowman was age 22 when he accepted Christ. “Back in my mind was my grandmother’s testimony that there was someone who could put me on the right road. It was a life-changing experience for me. I needed someone other than my own intellect to guide me through this world.”
It would be a blessing if his grandmother could see what he has done with his life and perhaps she can. He never left his home community of Charles City, that rural county between Richmond and Williamsburg. Of course he left everyday for 35 years to commute the 41 miles to Yorktown where he worked for the Department of the Navy but he always came home to his wife, Marian, and their seven children.
In his community he became a leader. He served as a member and chairman of the county Board of Supervisors where he gave 16 years of leadership, 1972-87. He was a founder of the county’s Center for Local History and serves as president of its historical society.
Besides history, Bowman also is passionate about his church, Little Elam Baptist Church. He proudly says, “On the third Sunday in September 1949 Little Elam granted me the right hand of fellowship.” In 1951 he became a deacon and is still serving today. His churchmanship led to other service. In 1974 Little Elam joined the Dover Baptist Association; and in 1989-90 Bowman served as moderator of the Dover. He also represented the association on the Virginia Baptist Mission Board. He currently is a member of the executive committee of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society.
Richard Bowman knows the back roads of his county. He can take visitors to the birthplace site of Lott Cary, the pioneer missionary to Africa, and to the original site of Elam (not to be confused with Little Elam) which, constituted in 1810, is one of the oldest black Baptist churches in Virginia. He can walk through Old Elam Cemetery and tell stories behind many headstones. One grave was marked by nothing but the stubble of a cedar tree yet Bowman knew the story behind the person. “It was the first burial I attended. I was four years old and I remember it as distinctly as if it were today.”
It should not be too surprising since Richard Bowman represents living history.