Garth Val Bowman

Garth Val Bowman

Birthplace

• Honeyville, Utah

Occupations

• Hoeing weeds on Uncle Lymans farm ($.25 per hour)
• Farm Hand picking tomatoes, topping beets, plowing hay with a team of work horses
• Crane Operator at an Aluminum plant ($.75 per hour)
• Army Engineer Regiment operating a boom crane in the European theater
• Worked at a furniture store,
• Farmed up to 500 acres,
• Served on the School Board and as National Farmers Assoc. County President (2 years)

Accidents / Hardships

• A Barn collapsed around him in a wind storm, the large center beam kept him from being crushed.
• Lost the tip of one of his fingers in a farming accident (his grandkids always asked “What happened to your finger grandpa”)

Hobbies / Interests

• A great love for the outdoors, hiking, camping and going on drives
• Played on the town softball and basketball teams
• Baseball is his favorite sport, Yankees Baseball Fan
• Avid traveler (traveled all over the continental U.S. with family in an RV)
• Flying (as a pilot not a passenger),Golfing, Love to see the Jazz Win!!

Dating / Spouse

• Bonnie Faye Christina Young (married November 6, 1949)
• At age 23 met an energetic cheerleader who was a junior at Redmond High. They dated off and on for 2 years. Bonnie says it wasn’t till he dated a best friend of hers that she turned all her charms on and won him over.  He says what she didn’t realize is he was “trapping her in his own sly way”.

Favorite Childhood Things

• Swam and ran track in high school and played
• Played 2nd baseman on the baseball team
• Skiing on skis he made in wood shop
• Ice skating and hockey games on the pond (with blades strapped to their shoes with curved branches as sticks and a block of wood for a puck)

Schooling

• Skipped the 2nd grade (later he repeated his junior year in high school after slacking off)
• Crane Operator training
• Basic Training in US Army Engineer Regiment (Including machine gun training)
• 1 semester @ Idaho College
• Oregon State University
• Schooled in Farming by his Father
• Trained as a Pilot and got his recreational license

Interesting Fact

• He was baptized in a pond by his home which still had ice around the exterior.
• His Dad caught him behind the barn practicing swear words another time, he caught him and Jarvis trying to smoke cedar bark rolled in newspaper.
• He missed his high school graduation ceremony moving his mother and the other children to Oregon to join up with their dad.
• One of the Lucky soldiers to sail on the Queen Mary (aka Gray Ghost) both to and from the European Theater in World War II (he made his bed under Lifeboat #1)

Children

• 2 Daughters
• Candis Faye born August 11, 1950
• Sandra Renee born May 21, 1953

Event / Memories

• Their family was sealed in the Idaho Falls Temple  (July 31, 1964)
• Jarvis and Garth went to gather sagebrush for winter fuel in the foothills near their home, their wiener roast turned into a wildfire and burned thousands of acres.  They never told anyone that they sparked that fire.
• “One fall when I returned from an annual Elk Hunting trip, I found that Bonnie has a surprise for me.”  She learned to fly in one week and went on to get her pilot’s license.  “I was doing some tractor work in the field one day, [and] she zoomed down over me and gave me quite a start.”