Charles Emerson Bowman (4/28/1871-9/3/1931) was born in Savannah, Missouri, the second of William D. Bowman (1846-1925) and Jeanette Ella Galloway (1863-1925) Bowman’s six children. The Bowmans lived in Wellington, Kansas before moving to Tustin on 9/28/1881 when Charles was ten years old.
The Bowmans first lived on a ranch at McFadden Street and Newport Road and later moved to citrus ranch on Redhill Avenue. Besides Charles, William’s children, Olive (1872-1942), Melville (1877-1944) and William H (1888-1964), a contractor, lived in Tustin.
Charles Bowman attended Tustin schools and Orange County Business College in Santa Ana. In 1898, at the age of 27, he served in Company L, 7th California Infantry regiment during the Spanish-American War. He returned to Tustin after his service and on 4/30/1902 married 26-year-old Anna L. Schillinger (5/27/1875-7/13/1959), a native of Easton, Pennsylvania. The couple was married in the home of Anna’s sister in Santa Ana. Charles and Anna would have two children, Clarence and Frances.
Charles first worked in the fruit packing industry but in 1916 he entered a partnership with George P Howley (1881-1956) of Santa Ana to form an orchard fumigation company, Bowman & Howley, and made his living spraying the citrus orchards of Orange County. The company merged with Aldrich and Graves and later became Graves and Howley.
In 1918 he bought an orchard of his own where the family lived at the corner of Laguna Road and Orange Avenue in Tustin. In 1921 Bowman sold the property to the Tustin School District for the site of the first high school. Bowman then bought a house at 350 W. Main Street in Tustin where he was living at the time of his death. In addition to his fumigation business and his orchards, he bought and sold many tracts of land in the area.
Bowman belonged to several local fraternal organizations including the Knights of Pythias, the Odd Fellows, the Santa Ana Elks, and the Spanish American War veterans.
Charles Bowman died in a tragic accident on the evening of 9/3/1931. He was walking east on First Street near Lyon Street, facing traffic, when he was struck by a westbound truck and killed instantly. He was 60 years old. His funeral was held two day later when he was buried at Fairhaven Memorial Park in Santa Ana.
Anna survived her husband by almost 28 years, passing away in a Santa Ana nursing home on July 13, 1959, at the age of 84. She had been a longtime member of the Tustin Presbyterian Church and was a lifetime member of the Ebell Society as well as a leader in the local PTA.
For many years she shared her home with her son Clarence until he married and with long time Tustin High School teachers Stella Yocum and Florence Lundblom. Her funeral was officiated by the pastor of the Presbyterian church, and she was buried beside her husband at Fairhaven.
Charles and Anna (Schillinger) Bowman’s two children were:
Clarence Charles Bowman (8/28/1904-7/24/1971) was born in the family home at 690 W. Third Street in Tustin. (The house still stands.) Clarence was the student body vice-president of the first graduating class of Tustin High School in 1923. In 1928 he began an 18-year stint as the registrar/business manager of the Tustin High School District, serving under principal James. W. Means. He was later employed as secretary of the Orange County Teacher’s Credit Union and served for fifteen years as a deputy tax collector of Orange County. He also worked at one time as the credit manager for the auto club.
At some point in the 1940’s Clarence married a woman named Virginia, who worked first as a clerk in the County Assessor’s office and then was deputy clerk of the Orange County Clerk’s office, in charge of the marriage license and passport division. (She issued the marriage license for actress Lana Turner and her fifth husband in 1960).
Clarence acted as treasurer of the Tustin Presbyterian Church and was always a booster of Tustin. He led a long campaign to have Tustin mailing addresses for the North Tustin area, even though much of the area fell within the Santa Ana Post Office District,
Clarence Bowman died at age 66 in Chapman General Hospital in Orange after a lengthy illness, He was buried at Fairhaven Memorial Park in Santa Ana.
Frances Schuler Bowman (1/15/1913-3/23/1997) was born in the family home at 660 W. Third Street in Tustin. She attended Tustin schools and graduated from Tustin High School in 1930. In June 1935 she married Quincy Llewellyn “Lew” Hardy (3/1/1905-12/11/1993) in Tustin. Lew was a native of Long Beach who graduated from Hollywood High School in 1923. Lew was an aviator who learned to fly when he joined the Army Air Corp in 1930.
In the late 1940s Lew co-founded the asphalt paving company of Hardy and Harper. The companies’ red trucks paved many of the roads and parking lots of the rapidly growing post-war Orange County. Hardy was a trustee on the Tustin School District Board and served as president of the statewide Engineering and Grading Contractors Association. With John Prescott, Andrew Holtz, Howard Reese, Louis Schmetzer, Wilbur M Smith, Charles J Vermeulen, Brig. General Ralph R Yeaman and William A Moses he founded the Saddleback National Bank at the corner of Newport Avenue and First Street in Tustin and served on the board of directors.
While Lew was taking care of business, Frances was taking care of their three sons (Charles, John and David) at their home at 200 South A Street in Tustin.
Lew passed away at the age of 88. Frances (Bowman) Hardy suffered a stroke and died at the age of 84.
See Museum file for the sources of this Family Profile
Created: Date 8/18/2022
Researched by Tim Zierer and Vicki Gray
