Life and courage at Bowman Cemetery

Along Highway 31, in the quite farming community at Wawbeek, sets a lonely red dirt road leading to Bowman Cemetery. History has long moved on from the days when the location marked a vibrant saw mill community, having left only a stone orchard of headstones to mark its passing. The people who lay beneath these stones each have a story; a story of the life of their time and inter-mixed with their earthly remains are the aspirations, ambitions, successes and failures from the days they walked the earth until the moment fate called their hand.

The cemetery got its name from the Bowman family which were earlier settlers in the area. According to Ms. Annie Bowman's WPA article during the Great Depression entitled "The Life Story of John Wesley Bowman," Mr. Bowman was born at Wawbeek in 1824. His parents were John W. and Susana Bowman from South Carolina who had settled in the area in 1820.

Legends abound about the area around Bowman Cemetery. It is believed an old road ran through the cemetery and northward. It has been said it connected with Little George Road near the refinery and thereafter linked up with a stage route. Numerous old homesteads are believed to sit beside the old roadbed.

One story is that Susana Bowman was extremely afraid of being left alone at night with her small children while her circuit riding husband delivered sermons at the far-flung church houses of the area.

The spring near their home was said to have been the site of a murder. Supposedly two soldiers were returning home from a war (presumably the Creek Indian War or the War of 1812-this is based upon when the couple settled in the area) and stopped for water. One had saved his money and was carrying his gold home to his family. The other had spent his on women, wine and song. While the honest soldier knelt at the spring, the other took his gun and knocked him in the head, robbed him and fled. Susana Bowman is said to have been haunted by the story and the image of the dead soldier laying by the spring.

Supposedly one night, while home alone with her children, the anxiety ridden woman saw an apparition of the murdered soldier in her home. He appeared at peace and happily at rest. So great was her faith in this image that she was never afraid to go to the spring after dark again. This was a year-round spring but Annie Bowman writes that it ceased to exist, almost overnight. One wonders if this may have been a reference to the late 1860s South Carolina earthquake whereby tremors shifted the ground in the area and closed off the big spring used by locals around the Bowman Cemetery area.

There were numerous springs in the area during those days but there was believed to be a big spring, much like the one in Canoe, somewhere near the cemetery. It has been said it may have been in the depression to the west of the road to present day Bowman Cemetery.

John Wesley Bowman was a Methodist circuit riding preacher who spread the Gospel to those living in this great unbroken wilderness. He is also said to have been a sort of herbalist who treated a particularly bad local illness with a plant called Queen's Delight which grew in abundance in the area.

The area around the Bowman Cemetery was known to have several healers who practiced over the years. Mr. Clark Godwin recounted to me in 1981 how my grandfather, Allen Driskell had received a nasty cut to his leg while working at an Alger Sullivan timber camp. The cut became infected and the infection threatened to spread. A local man who lived in the woods of that area mixed up a paste from various plants. He insisted his patients not see him mix the plants or know the ingredients. Whatever was in the mixture worked as in my grandfather kept his leg and lived another forty years.

The long-ago story of Kesiah Lowery recounts a simple grave with an inspiring past.

Kesiah Mathias Lowery was the wife of A.M. Lowery, Sr.

According to an Andalusia Star article from October 11, 2014; Andrew Madison Lowery, migrated to Macon County, Ala., in 1851 where he met and was married to Kesiah Jane Mathis, daughter of Wesley and Mary Mathis. They lived there for about four years before moving with Kesiah's parents to Covington County, Ala., in 1855. They settled near the family of Jesse Beck and his wife, Sarah (Woodcock), who had arrived in Covington County circa 1841.

Andrew Lowery moved his family to Georgia during the War Between The States. He was attached to Confederate regiments from Georgia and from Florida although he was in a Florida regiment when the war ended.

Following the war, Andrew moved his family to Evansville, which is near present day Bowman Cemetery. A.M. Lowery Sr, was killed by a neighbor in 1871 in a dispute over a dog. It is believed his grave is the oldest marked grave in Bowman Cemetery. His widow, Kesiah Lowery, then moved her family to Canoe, Ala. and it is here our story begins.

The widowed Kesiah had eight children to raise without a father. This was in an era when public assistance was a foreign term and people were expected to make their own way in the world.

According to Mrs. Carolyn Conn in 2007, in an interview for Canoe: History of A Southern Town, she noted that Mrs. Lowery took on many different jobs to support her family. From cutting cross-ties and firewood for the railroad, to riding the train to Montgomery to bring back the payroll for the section workers, Kesiah Lowery found a way to make life work for her rather than shrinking into depression and thereby left a lesson of inspiration and courage for future generations.

Kesiah passed away on April 10, 1920 around 10 o'clock. R.W. Brooks, the editor for the Atmore Record, and a pastor and a family friend of Mrs. Lowery, published the following in The Atmore Record on April 15, 1920:

"The spirit of Mrs. Kesiah Lowery, better known as Grandma Lowery, took its flight to her Heavenly home at the age of 84 at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Mary Dawson at Canoe. She had been a resident of Canoe for nearly half a century and was one of the old landmarks of the community, where she was known and loved by all, as she was a friend to everybody," noted Brooks.

Brooks went on to write of his long history with the deceased, "The writer had known her for nearly a half century and she was one of his warmest friends, during all that long period of time. She leaves to mourn her loss eight children: WW Lowery of Atmore, Rev. AM Lowery of Canoe, Robert Lowery of Atmore and Jas T. Lowery of Montgomery, Mrs. Mary Dawson of Canoe, Mrs. Victoria Dunaway of Canoe, Mrs. Florida Tolin of Atmore, and Mrs. Ada Dixon of Munson, Fla, and a host of grandchildren and great grandchildren and friends and neighbors by the score who sympathized with them in their irreparable loss."

According to Rev. Brooks the funeral was one of the largest ever held in Canoe, "The funeral was preached by the writer at the Baptist Church at Canoe to an overflowing house at 2 o'clock pm, Sunday. The greatest gathering that had ever been at the church was there to show their love and veneration for one of their members for she had been a member of that church when it was organized."

Brooks stated the body was carried to the old Wawbeek (Bowman) cemetery and laid beside her husband who had preceded her 49 years earlier.

In a parting comment Brooks noted the Heavenly hope and faith of Mrs. Lowery by adding, "And we left her to wait the resurrection morn when she will hear the welcome plaudit, "Well done thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joys of thy Lord." Rev. A.M. Lowery., who is also buried at Bowman, was a local minister and the first pastor of Olive Road Baptist Church. He is buried at Bowman Cemetery as well.

Also buried at Bowman Cemetery is Josephine Emmons Moye; who was also a widow. Her husband was killed when the wagon he and his family were riding collided with a truck. She lost both her husband and son in the wreck. She later married Walter Evans. Her tombstone lists her as Jodie Evans. There are many stories of tragedy in every cemetery but also stories of hope, redemption and a better place on the other side of eternity.

On Saturday March 30, 2019 members of the William Carney Camp Sons of Confederate Veterans and friends, met at Bowman Cemetery to clean up the cemetery. The group not only cleaned and maintained around the graves of Confederate veterans but also mowed, cut and weeded the entire grounds. There is no caretaker of the cemetery as such, but only the dedicated efforts of people like the property owner Marietta Johnson, people who have family members buried at the cemetery, and members of groups like the Sons of Confederate veterans.

Commander Ryan Preston, Recording Secretary Terry Bryan, Past Commander Kevin McKinley, Sondra McKinley and others were present for this clean up. The Carney Camp has also restored the William Wallace Cemetery in Robinsonville in times past and regularly works to maintain and promote issues of Confederate history and heritage.

Precious memories abound of many a family member or friend who is interred at cemetery's such as Bowman and its important that such places do not turn into a neglected patch of weeds. The William Carney Camp is planning other clean ups in the future.

Shadows and Dust Volume III: Legacies is available for purchase in the amount of $30.00+$5.00 shipping and handling to PO Box 579 Atmore, AL 36502 or visit Lulu Publishing.com; Amazon.com, Barnes and Nobles.com OR at the Monroe County Heritage Museum in Monroeville, Alabama or by calling 251 294 0293.