C. S. Bowman

C. S. BOWMAN. The subject of this sketch was born in McDonough County, Illinois, August 6, 1864. Both his parents died before he was four years old. When he grew to proper age, he attended the country school two or three months in the winter season of each year, and worked on a farm the rest of the time. At the age of 16, the boy started out into the world, wholly dependent upon his own exertions for a living. He had no money and only about a sixth-grade education, but he went to work on a farm, saved up his meager earnings and went to school at Champaign, Illinois. After being there a year, he found it necessary to go back to the farm to earn enough money to enable him to attend the school through another yearly term. He did so, and at the end of the term he secured a teacher's certificate. After that he taught school and attended school, alternately.

Mr. Bowman came to Kansas in 1884, and the following year to Cherokee County, where he has been connected with educational work he has been connected with educational work ever since, with one or two brief intervals. He taught a number of terms in the country districts, the first being in district No. 84. From the country schools he went to the city schools of Galena, then to Lowell, and afterward to Baxter Springs. He also taught in the schools at Weir City; and when the Cherokee County High School was established, in 1900, the board of trustees elected him to take charge of it. The building was not yet completed. He organized the school in one of the buildings of the city schools of Columbus, which was used for about three months, when the school was moved into the County High School Building. He has continued as principal of the County High School ever since it was first opened, and at the last meeting of the board he was elected for the coming year.

Considering the hardships through which he passed in childhood and the struggles he had during his early manhood, and that he secured his education wholly through his own efforts, Mr. Bowman may be considered a self-made man. He overcame many obstacles which would have discouraged nearly any one of a less determined nature.

In 1886 Mr. Bowman was married to Dora E. Adams, daughter of A. H. Adams, of Cherokee County.

History of Cherokee County Kansas and its representative citizens, ed. & comp. by Nathaniel Thompson Allison, 1904, transcribed by James von Brookner student from USD 508, Baxter Springs Middle School, Baxter Springs, Kansas, 1/14/97