Albert E. Bowen
Born: 31 October 1875
Called as General Superintendent of the YMMIA: 1935
Released from Superintendency of the YMMIA: 1937
Called to Quorum of the Twelve: 8 April 1937
Died: 15 July 1953
Called as General Superintendent of the YMMIA: 1935
Released from Superintendency of the YMMIA: 1937
Called to Quorum of the Twelve: 8 April 1937
Died: 15 July 1953
Biographical Articles
Improvement Era, May 1937, Albert E. Bowen of the Council of the Twelve
Improvement Era, May 1937, Editorial: Albert E. Bowen
Instructor, May 1937, Albert E. Bowen
The Relief Society Magazine, June 1937, Albert Ernest Bowen of the Council of the Twelve
Instructor, April 1943, Boyhood Experiences IV. When I Was A Child
Instructor, June 1946, Albert E. Bowen
Improvement Era, November 1952, Albert E. Bowen: A Lesson from One Man's Life
Improvement Era, September 1953, A. E. Bowen--1875-1953
Instructor, September 1953, Constant Amid the Changes
The Relief Society Magazine, September 1953, In Memoriam--Elder Albert E. Bowen (October 31, 1875 - July 15, 1953)
My own research and opinion
Improvement Era, May 1937, Editorial: Albert E. Bowen
Instructor, May 1937, Albert E. Bowen
The Relief Society Magazine, June 1937, Albert Ernest Bowen of the Council of the Twelve
Instructor, April 1943, Boyhood Experiences IV. When I Was A Child
Instructor, June 1946, Albert E. Bowen
Improvement Era, November 1952, Albert E. Bowen: A Lesson from One Man's Life
Improvement Era, September 1953, A. E. Bowen--1875-1953
Instructor, September 1953, Constant Amid the Changes
The Relief Society Magazine, September 1953, In Memoriam--Elder Albert E. Bowen (October 31, 1875 - July 15, 1953)
My own research and opinion
Quinney, Joseph. "Albert E. Bowen of the Council of the Twelve." Improvement Era. May 1937. pg. 278-281, 311.
Albert E. BOWEN OF THE COUNCIL OF THE TWELVE The story of a life of service that began in a log cabin in Idaho and led to a brilliant career as jurist and advocate, and is now consummated by a call to apostleship. By JOSEPH QUINNEY President of Logan Temple The author, a lifelong acquaintance and intimate friend of Albert E. Bowen, has here given warm insight into the background, character, and career of this distinguished man who has been called into the higher councils of the Church. THE BIRTH of Albert Ernest Bowen blessed a humble home on the 31st day of October, 1876, at Henderson Creek near Samaria, Idaho. He was the seventh child in a family of ten; and the youngest son. His parents of fine Welsh and English stock were pioneers; the father, David Bowen, came to Utah with a handcart company in 1856, and the mother, Annie Shackleton Bowen, walked across the plains with an ox team company in 1860. They were full of faith and unafraid of work. Indeed, they taught their offspring the value and beauty of labor, and the need of the gift of faith. The early life of Elder Bowen was spent upon the farm, in the timbers, among the sheep and cattle. The homes in which the Bowen family lived were humble—the usual log cabins of those early days. His meager earnings went to assist in supporting the growing family, as did the earnings of the other members of the family. The struggles of the family were many. Indeed, many times, but before his day, they were without the real necessities of life. Nevertheless they faced the vicissitudes of life with faith and undaunted courage. With a prayer of gratitude they sank to sleep at night. Albert E. Bowen knew the value of life when but a child. The rule of conservation was a part of his early training. He learned, through hard experience, the value of time, and therefore utilized it. He was considerate of those with whom he associated as companions. He learned and appreciated the discipline of a well-regulated home. The obedience which he gave to his noble father and devoted mother was not a duty to be reluctantly endured, but a privilege to be highly sought. His home life was built upon the principle of love, integrity and hard work. Each day was approached with hope and determination, and closed with constructive work well done. In those early days the thought that was uppermost in his mind was, "That which is worth having is worth working for." Brother Bowen referred always to his sainted mother as a student of life. Well-read in the finest literature of the ages, she poised and graced the home with dignity and sustaining power. If he were asked to state her greatness, he would unhesitatingly say with John Temple Graves: "If I should seek to touch the inward source of her greatness, I would lay my hand upon her heart. Love carried her messages to all who came within the range of her acquaintance, and the honest throb of human sympathies kept her responsive to all things great and true." "If there be but one thing pure where all else is sullied, that will endure when all else passes away. If there be aught surpassing human deed, or word, or thought, it is a mother's love." His attitude, thought, and word toward his mother were eloquent and affectionate. His deep regard and love for his father was unbounded, true and genuine. His relationship to his brothers and sisters was fine and splendid, always considerate of their welfare and always recognizing their contributions to family life. The Bowen family was well organized; consequently, there was complete understanding between father and mother, sons and daughters. The solution of family problems was shared among the members of the family. Cooperation was always a part of the family program. They agreed among themselves that all should receive as much schooling as possible, and therefore took advantage of the opportunities of the early rural school that the community could afford, as far as their meager means would allow. Albert Bowen and his brother, Charles F., left Samaria one early autumn day in the year 1896 for Logan and registered as students at the Brigham Young College. The achievements of the Bowens are a matter of record in that fine institution of learning. A. E. Bowen said that when they arrived in Logan they were the personification of country life—green, unfinished, and very much afraid. But, again they brought with them their great heritage —willingness to work—and with this as their background they entered upon their college careers. Naturally, college life was an entirely different problem to that of farm life, the solution of which meant hours, days, and months of concentration of mind. They were poor in the material things of life, but rich in ambition and mental power. As the days passed they developed into commanding personalities. These Bowen brothers distinguished themselves as students at the B. Y. C, and later fulfilled the promise of their youth, when Charles F. specialized in geology and, after extended training in Eastern Universities, became chief geologist for the Standard Oil Company, which position he holds today; Albert E. at first devoted himself to teaching and later to the practice of the law, in which he has been eminently successful. It required only a short time until A. E. Bowen "arrived," so to speak. He found his place, and from thenceforth was like a light set upon a hill. His college life stands as a monument to courage and everlasting work. He carried away the thought that the path to a full and rich life is always open to the individual unless he closes it himself. From that time on, he never closed the door leading to light. He graduated from the Brigham Young College in the year 1902 with a A. B. degree and with distinction and high honors. He became a member of the faculty during his later years at college and thus earned a little to help himself along. His love for Brigham Young College glows like the sun. This school will for all time be his first alma mater. It taught him how to think; and this, together with subsequent knowledge and experience has taught him what to think. Though happy in the possession of the A. B. degree, and a demonstrated capacity for the profession of a teacher, he dreamed dreams of further education and set about to have these dreams come true. Immediately after graduation Elder Bowen accepted a call to take a mission to Germany. Before leaving he married Miss Aletha E. Reeder of Hyde Park, Utah. She, during his absence, worked in the County Recorder's office at Logan, and from her small earnings contributed to his support during his time in the ministry. Elder Bowen became an effective missionary; he accepted all calls made of him, and his intelligent contribution to mission life helped advance the work of God in that foreign land. He was honorably released to return home after having served for a period of three years. Upon his arrival home he accepted a position on the Brigham Young College faculty at Logan. He held this position until 1908, and became recognized as a very efficient teacher, always clear in statement, whatever the subject taught. He impressed upon his pupils the principles of righteousness, honest thinking, and honest doing. He never attempted to teach unless he, himself, clearly understood the fundamentals of the subject matter. His ability was so well recognized that he at one time was offered the presidency of the Brigham Young College, and at another, a position on the faculty of the Utah State Agricultural College. In the year 1908 he entered the Chicago Law School, from which he graduated in 1911 with distinction, with the degree of Doctor of Jurisprudence. At this institution, as well as at the other schools of learning which he had attended, he has received honors and recognition. At the time of his graduation from the University of Chicago Law School he was selected a member of the legal honorary fraternity, "The Order of the Coif". Only three men of each class are elected to this fraternity and Albert E. Bowen was one of them. Albert E. Bowen is the father of twins, sons—Albert R. and Robert R. Bowen. Their mother passed on in 1905 at the time of their birth. She was a beautiful woman, full of grace and truth, and well able to meet the issues of life. The sons have both filled missions in Germany and are graduates of the University of Utah, and of Stanford University. They are engaged in the practice of law, one in San Francisco and the other in Salt Lake City. They are much like their worthy father in physical appearance and in character. After his graduation from the University of Chicago Law School Brother Bowmen entered into the practice of law as a member of the Logan law firm of Nebeker, Thatcher and Bowen, later, after Mr. Nebeker died, the firm of Thatcher and Bowen. During his residence in Logan he won the confidence of the entire community. He held many positions of trust. He was twice elected county attorney, and was nominated by the Republican party in 1916 for the State Supreme Court. He always distinguished himself as a fearless and effective defender of the right. Logan people refer to him as a most effective and intelligent teacher, attorney, and public servant. In the year 1920 he moved to Salt Lake City and became a member of the law firm of Clark, Richards and Bowen. He now heads the firm, Bowen and Quinney. His work as a lawyer has brought him in contact with all classes of people. He has handled the problems of individuals with the same accuracy, honesty, and fairness that he has given to the cases of great corporations which he has represented. He has never accepted questionable or unethical business. His rule of life would only permit of the very highest and the finest type of endeavor. In 1927 he was made Vice President of the Utah Bar Association and the following year was made President of that organization. He enjoys the confidence and respect of the legal fraternity and is recognized as one of the West's most able trial lawyers. In his profession he stands above reproach. The achievements of Elder Bowen are many. Never for a moment has he lost sight of the value of the religious life. Never has he refused any call made of him by the local or General Authorities oi the Church. He has ever given his best, realizing that nothing less than his best would satisfy. He has always carried the thought that the greatest service that one man can do for others is to minister to the spiritual side of life, to bring men into the transforming fellowship of Jesus Christ. His power has been felt in Religion Class work, Sunday Schools, and Mutual Improvement Associations. Before moving to Salt Lake City he was superintendent of the Cache Stake Sunday Schools for four years, during which time, under his able management, the Sunday School work developed greatly. He has always built upon the teachings of the Lord, Jesus Christ. Soon after his arrival in Salt Lake City, Elder Bowen was named a member of the General Sunday School Board. His contributions to this organization were intelligent and constructive. He served in this capacity until January, 1935, when he was called to serve as General Superintendent of the Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association. He has graced this office with dignity and power, and has won the love and respect of his fellow-workers in this cause. It must always be remembered that one of the delightful and most important things of life is the association of a good wife. In 1916, A. E. Bowen married Emma Lucy Gates, a woman talented and cultured in the arts of life. Her voice has stirred and inspired thousands upon thousands of people in foreign lands and in America. She is highly gifted in the musical, domestic, and social arts. Above all she is a thorough Latter-day Saint. She mothered the two sons of Elder Bowen with devoted affection. She has always carried charm and beauty in her home. She has lifted her voice both in song and word in the defense of the work of God. She has upheld and sustained her worthy husband in all his endeavors throughout their married life. The qualities of life of A. E. Bowen are numerous. Outstanding are his silent power, friendship, loyalty, and faith. To know him is to appreciate the silent power that always radiates from his personality. Modesty, without assumption, characterizes every movement of this fine man. Quoting from Thomas Carlyle: "Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together: that at length they may emerge, full-formed and majestic, into the daylight of life; which they are thenceforth to rule." A. E. Bowen's thoughts are fashioned and built in the silent hours of his life. There are many who join in the thought that to be with him is to feel his strength. One naturally gravitates to him. There are those whose very presence are radiant with power. When A. E. Bowen speaks, whether in private or in public, his words are choice, majestic, and fine. His friendship is genuine; it is built upon the principle of love. He would gladly sacrifice his all for a devoted friend. To him friendship is more than a passing phrase. He never permits the good name of a friend to be smeared with unsavory words. He guards character as a thing sacred. He regards friendship as a holy possession and would say with Ralph Waldo Emerson: "A divine person is the prophecy of the mind! a friend is the hope of the heart. Our beatitude waits for the fulfillment of these two in one." His loyalty is deep and fine. He has been true to every trust given him. He has lived in the confidence of his friends. He has upheld and sustained every righteous movement that has come under his observation. His loyalty to the Presidency and General Authorities of the Church is without flaw. He rightfully said that he would follow in his new exalted calling the course that he has always been taught to pursue—to do the best he knows how to do, and sustain those with all his heart who have as their responsibility the directing of the affairs of the Church. He loves the right and those who do the right. His given word is his pledged bond, and the bad faith of another never justifies its default. Faith has taught Albert E. Bowen to look up and not down. He has carried throughout his life the spirit of hope. His is a knowing faith. His contact with God has been genuine, sincere, and holy. He has sought his Creator through the agency of prayer, humility, determination, and work. His unassuming attitude toward people and things has brought him the thanks of grateful hearts, and now that he has come into an exalted place—an Apostle of the Lord, Jesus Christ — we unite in thought and word and action in our knowledge that God through His servants has selected a man of merit, capability and power. In this day of grandeur and eloquence, splendor and glory, we join with John Temple Graves in his summation of life: "Next to the radiance that flows from the Almighty's throne is the light of a noble and beautiful life, wrapping itself in tender benediction around the destinies of men, and finding its home in the Bosom of the everlasting God." Such a benediction belongs to Albert E. Bowen, a man of great worth, and an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. |
ALBERT E. BOWEN
LOG CABIN AT SAMARIA, IDAHO, IN WHICH ALBERT E. BOWEN WAS REARED AND IN WHICH HE LIVED UNTIL ABOUT THE AGE OF EIGHTEEN. WHEN THIS PICTURE WAS TAKEN THE BOWEN FAMILY HAD LONG SINCE DESERTED THIS CABIN.
DAVID BOWEN AND ANNIE SHACKLETON BOWEN, FATHER AND MOTHER OF ALBERT E. BOWEN, FROM AN
EARLIER PICTURE. ALBERT E. BOWEN AS HE APPEARED AT ABOUT AGE 22, FOLLOWING HIS GRADUATION FROM BRIGHAM YOUNG COLLEGE. LOGAN, UT
ALBERT E. BOWEN AS HE APPEARED IN 1911 FOLLOWING HIS GRADUATION FROM THE SCHOOL OF LAW AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO.
THE MOTHER, BROTHERS AND SISTERS OF ALBERT E, BOWEN AS THEY APPEARED ABOUT TEN YEARS AGO. FRONT ROW, LEFT TO RIGHT: WALTER F. BOWEN, DAVID J. BOWEN, LEWIS J. BOWEN; SECOND ROW CENTER, LEFT TO RIGHT: EMMA BOWEN YOUNG, AND THE MOTHER OF THE FAMILY, MRS. ANNIE SHACKLETON BOWEN; THIRD ROW, LEFT TO RIGHT: C. F. BOWEN, ALBERT E. BOWEN, MARY BOWEN HAWKINS, EDITH BOWEN, AND AGNES BOWEN WALDRON.
ALETHA REEDER BOWEN (DECEASED), FIRST WIFE OF ALBERT E. BOWEN AND THE MOTHER OF HIS TWIN SONS.
ANNIE SHACKLETON, MOTHER OF ALBERT E. BOWEN, AND A YOUNG NIECE, AS THEY APPEARED BEFORE LEAVING ENGLAND AS MORMON EMIGRANTS BACK IN 1860.
THE BOWEN FAMILY, LEFT TO RIGHT: ALBERT R. BOWEN AND ROBERT R. BOWEN, TWIN SONS OF ALBERT E. BOWEN; LUCY GATES BOWEN. PRESENT LIVING WIFE; AND ALBERT E. BOWEN.
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Widtsoe, John A. "Albert E. Bowen." Improvement Era. May 1937. pg. 304.
Albert E. Bowen
HANDCART company pushed and pulled its way in 1 856 along the dry and dusty trail over the plains to Salt Lake City. An eighteen year old lad, David Bowen, fresh from the green land of Wales, walked sturdily along, eagerly scanning the West for the promised valleys of the Saints. There he should live the life of the glorious new-found Gospel!
Four years later, for the same destination, over the same trail, still marked by whirling spirals of dust, came an oxteam company. The wagons were loaded, Annie Shackleton was young, and so the nineteen year old girl, London born and bred, walked all the way across the plains. The spires of Westminster Abbey were forgotten in the vision of life among the Saints of the latter days.
Soon thereafter David and Annie, having entered into an eternal partnership, set about to help build the Zion of the Lord. Sagebrush was cleared, the furrow turned, the harvest gathered. They and their ten children measured the years with toil and thrift and thanksgiving, with the upward vision and the speech of faith. Though living under pioneer conditions, they drank the culture of the world from books of classic merit, and from sacred volumes they garnered the meaning of life. By service their faith waxed strong. It was the simple, honest life, by which ambition, courage, and strength are begotten.
The power that urged David Bowen and Annie Shackleton over the weary sea and across the desert land and made them worthy pioneers and Church members has been passed on to Albert E. Bowen, their son, whom the Lord has chosen to bear special witness to His name. The clean, honest, fearless upbringing has fitted him well for his new and sacred duties. His own stern determination to go forward, to build upon the traditions of his family, have brought him worldly success and the favor of the Lord. His large training and experience will be an asset in using, in his new work, the high gifts of mind and eloquence, with which he has been endowed. Full of faith, true as the star in the north, sympathetic with struggling humanity, compassionate and understanding, he will give much, his all, to the cause of the Lord. In him has been implanted the noble nature.
The Y. M. M. I. A. has lost an able Superintendent, one who in slightly more than two years made valuable contribution to the M. I. A. cause, but in his new and larger field he will continue to advance the cause of youth.
The Church welcomes Albert E. Bowen into his position of service in the Latter-day work of the Lord—J. A. W.
Albert E. Bowen
HANDCART company pushed and pulled its way in 1 856 along the dry and dusty trail over the plains to Salt Lake City. An eighteen year old lad, David Bowen, fresh from the green land of Wales, walked sturdily along, eagerly scanning the West for the promised valleys of the Saints. There he should live the life of the glorious new-found Gospel!
Four years later, for the same destination, over the same trail, still marked by whirling spirals of dust, came an oxteam company. The wagons were loaded, Annie Shackleton was young, and so the nineteen year old girl, London born and bred, walked all the way across the plains. The spires of Westminster Abbey were forgotten in the vision of life among the Saints of the latter days.
Soon thereafter David and Annie, having entered into an eternal partnership, set about to help build the Zion of the Lord. Sagebrush was cleared, the furrow turned, the harvest gathered. They and their ten children measured the years with toil and thrift and thanksgiving, with the upward vision and the speech of faith. Though living under pioneer conditions, they drank the culture of the world from books of classic merit, and from sacred volumes they garnered the meaning of life. By service their faith waxed strong. It was the simple, honest life, by which ambition, courage, and strength are begotten.
The power that urged David Bowen and Annie Shackleton over the weary sea and across the desert land and made them worthy pioneers and Church members has been passed on to Albert E. Bowen, their son, whom the Lord has chosen to bear special witness to His name. The clean, honest, fearless upbringing has fitted him well for his new and sacred duties. His own stern determination to go forward, to build upon the traditions of his family, have brought him worldly success and the favor of the Lord. His large training and experience will be an asset in using, in his new work, the high gifts of mind and eloquence, with which he has been endowed. Full of faith, true as the star in the north, sympathetic with struggling humanity, compassionate and understanding, he will give much, his all, to the cause of the Lord. In him has been implanted the noble nature.
The Y. M. M. I. A. has lost an able Superintendent, one who in slightly more than two years made valuable contribution to the M. I. A. cause, but in his new and larger field he will continue to advance the cause of youth.
The Church welcomes Albert E. Bowen into his position of service in the Latter-day work of the Lord—J. A. W.
"Albert E. Bowen." Instructor. May 1937. pg. 198.
Albert E. Bowen The elevation of Albert Ernest Bowen to the apostleship, filling the vacancy caused by the death of Alonzo A. Hinckley, was the cause of unusual satisfaction to the membership of the Church and especially to the Deseret Sunday School Union Board, of which he was a member from March 14, 1922, until his appointment as General Superintendent of the Y. M. M. L A. January 26, 1935. Quiet and unassuming in demeanor. Brother Bowen was held in high esteem by his fellow members of the General Board. Of an analytical turn of mind, he brought into the discussions of the various topics considered by the Board, a high order of intelligence and wisdom. With his fine testimony of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and a fine spirituality added to his careful training, Albert E. Bowen will be a valuable and helpful member of the Council of the Twelve and a blessing to the people. We wish him joy and happiness in his high and holy calling. |
ALBERT E. BOWEN
Of the Council of the Twelve |
Henderson, W. W. "Albert Ernest Bowen of the Council of the Twelve." The Relief Society Magazine. June 1937. pg. 335-338.
Albert Ernest Bowen of the Council of the Twelve By Dr. W. W. Henderson THIS article is a brief story of conversion to the church in a foreign land; immigration to America under trying circumstances ; crossing the dusty, unproductive plains from the Missouri River to Salt Lake Valley by foot, or cart, or covered wagon; colonization and the hunt for homing places in the wild desert lands of the Great Basin; settling down to conquer the untamed resources which man had never touched, and win an existence from soil that had been almost forever the possession of the sage, the native grasses and the wild beasts which lived among them. This is a brief mention of a God-fearing people, striving together in these new lands to build up social communities, and then the silent but certain call to the great centers, of those pioneer youth who looked with vision beyond the horizon which bounded the little and much limited far-away settlements in which these youth found themselves. It is a story of magnificent leadership spread far out, and the return of this leadership, in a generation or two, to the very centers from which a wonderful movement spread, to take an influential hand in guiding the great master wheel that gave, and still gives, spirit and wisdom and vitality to the whole affair. This grand panorama is the course that has been run by Elder Albert Ernest Bowen, with his good forebears beginning the pageant on British soil and with his own skillful hand now participating at the great and guiding helm. GO ye unto all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." (Mark 16:15) No greater labor of love was ever laid on the faithful than that ; and probably no greater order was ever given in behalf of mankind. II Duce would send his emissaries into other lands to impose fascism. Der Feuhrer would impose the nazi doctrine; and Stalin would have communism of his kind cover the earth ; all of them by force, if necessary. Jesus would have his missionaries go voluntarily to carry the love of God to all who dwell on earth, that peace may abide in all the nations and good will in every heart. It was this lovely message of the Savior that the faithful missionaries of the Church were attempting to bear to all men ; it was this "sound of the gospel" that caught the attention of David Bowen, the young man in Wales, and Annie Shackleton, the young woman in England, unknown to each other, who were destined to meet and be joined in holy wedlock, far away in the land of Zion, and be the parents of Elder Bowen. "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned." This statement does not carry a promise to pay for goodness nor a threat to destroy those who fail. It is merely a plain statement of natural consequence. If one believes and then acts as if he really does, appropriate reward is the only result that can follow. If one does not believe he will likely not act as if he does and this failure like all failures has damning consequences. The life and the actual day to day living of David Bowen and Annie Shackleton and the family they brought up have been consistent with a sincere and devout acceptance of the gospel of Christ. They heard the "word," they did what it required, and the "house" they built upon "a rock" has never been shaken by wind, or rain, or flood. The reward has been certain. DAVID BOWEN came to Utah from Wales in 1856. Annie Shackleton came from England in 1860. Both were in early youth, but they paid for their own passage with hard work and hard saving. They both came to Utah alone, as far as their own families were concerned. They met each other in Salt Lake City in 1860, married in 1861, and lived in Salt Lake until 1869. In these eight years, they acquired a little home of their own in the city, a five acre tract in "The Big Field", a family of four children, an increased love for the gospel they had espoused in their youth, and an enlarged vision of the part they must take in the great movement they were a part of. COLONIZATION was one of the most evident of the Latter-day Saints activities in those early days. Thousands of people were coming annually to join the saints in Utah. Not only must the population spread out into new territory to prevent overcrowding, but all promising places must be taken possession of while the opportunity was favorable. Under a carefully planned program of settlement set up by the church under the direction of that greatest of all known colonizers, President Brigham Young, some of the saints were moving eastward from Salt Lake into Wyoming, some were moving southward into Utah's Dixie, and into Arizona, some westward into Nevada and some northward into Idaho. The most successful attempt at colonization the world knows about was being carried on with order and enthusiasm. People coming to Utah from all Lands were finding new homes and happily building up hundreds of successful and happy communities. The spirit of colonization took hold of the Bowens and the Bowens .took hold of the movement. It helped them along into new opportunity. Important as this was to them, it was very much more important to the colonization movement. They helped it. They gave the movement direction and strength ; they gave it wisdom ; they gave it tenacity, industry, intelligence and fortitude. Those colonizers who moved along with the Bowens did so largely by reason of the Bowens. Ask any of them who were there and they will tell you that the Bowens were the moving and uplifting spirits in the settlement. Elder Bowen said in one of his excellent essays, "The life of one great man is worth more in the world than the cattle on a thousand hills." (B. Y. C. Bulletin, Vol. X, No. 3.) It was so with this fine Bowen family in that great movement of people seeking new places to make homes and build communities. THE Bowens settled on Henderson Creek, a few miles south of Malad, Idaho, in the fall of 1869. It was here that Elder Bowen was born in 1876. The family moved a little later on to Samaria, a settlement about five miles southwest of Malad. This was their home for many years. They played a leading role in developing community life, in building churches, in organizing and carrying on religious institutions, in setting up schools, in accumulating good books and in crystallizing moral and religious sentiment into worthy standards of living. One brief glance into the Bowen home in the evening is beautiful. Father Bowen was industriously and thoughtfully reading the Bible or other church works. These were his favorites and claimed all his spare time. Mother Bowen was enjoying another classical English work of Thackeray or Scott or Dickens or another of this class, which she had managed in some ingenious way to possess; pausing at times to drive home a beautiful lesson to the rest of the family everyone of whom had a book in his hand or his "head in a book." Every winter evening was a night school. Mother teaching the great English classics, father teaching the Church works, and every member of the family an honor student. Given a few homes like this in every community and they will easily make the whole world into a paradise. Elder Bowen truthfully said, a quarter of a century ago, "Improvement is like everything else; the desire for it has to be inspired before it can take place, and it takes opportunity to suggest possibility and beget desire. No one can have a desire for that which his mind has not conceived and the presence of that which leads to and suggests worthy conceptions, begets noble desires, and these in turn find expression in exalted achievement." (Loc cit) Elder Bowen must have gotten this grand thought right out of his own home. A LL that has been said in this brief article, so far, constitutes the solid foundation upon which Albert Ernest Bowen has built his life. Probably he would not, or could not wish a better foundation. How could there be a better one? He had within him that blessed gift of understanding which enabled him to see clearly what the entire panorama was, of what it was all about. He had also that magnificent gift of response which reacts sensibly to wholesome stimulus. By the time he had come to his youth, he was all wound up like some superior mechanism, having within him an unyielding power to keep on going. Energy, ambition and determination had been so deeply implanted in him, that there was never a thought of deviation from the courses on which his good father and his ingenious mother had started him. He was never like a meteor to shine out in a brief dazzle and then fall somewhere, but like a planet set going within the limitations of universal law to find his course to be constant and progressive. BERT BOWEN had visioned college days, and in spirit, had attended college long before he arrived there. He had known some of his school teachers intimately, had seen how grand it was to be learned and had dared to envision himself sometime engaged in the noble vocation of school teacher. At the Brigham Young College in Logan he met many other young folks, brought up as he had been, in the same great movement, by sturdy parentage, in rough country under conditions of material poverty and spiritual riches. To all these fine young folks, he was an inspiration. No student ever outclassed him in character and scholarship. The leadership we mention in our first paragraph made itself strongly manifest in A. E. Bowen the very first year he was at college. His instructors remarked that he was distinctly on his way to the front ranks. Nothing but an all defeating calamity could have stopped this young scholar on his way to some position of eminence where he could be useful to the most people possible. Elder Bowen said in the general conference of the church on April 6, 1937, "that the only thing in the world that counts is people. In all of his ministry Jesus was concerned only with people; nothing else mattered." Elder Bowen's old college day friends know that he was thinking this same grand thought thirty-five years ago. "I have never regarded myself as a person of particular consequence," said Elder Bowen. (Loc. cit) All his friends know that, and many will recall that his remark is a | worthy example of Emerson's great truism "All great men are willing to be small." (Compensation) Space compels that this article come to a close. We trust to others to tell much that we must necessarily omit. BROTHER BOWEN has never had to ask the question "Where shall I get an opportunity?" He has always been able to see opportunity. He has, however, often faced the perplexing question "Which opportunity shall I take?" Many of them have come to him. The wisdom to choose rightly has ever been his. When he received the late call to the Apostleship he very modestly said, "I pledge you that I will give it all my strength." This is a magnificent pledge, and it is no new pledge for A. E. Bowen. He made this pledge first on Henderson Creek. He repeated this pledge when he went to college, and again when selected for the debating team forty years ago, and how many times before and since, nobody knows. This pledge is not a slogan of his, it is a lifetime policy as deep seated as the very internal organs that keep him breathing. |
ELDER ALBERT E. BOWEN
|
Bowen, Albert E. "Boyhood Experiences IV. When I Was a Child." Instructor. April 1943. pg. 185, 197.
BOYHOOD EXPERIENCES IV. When I Was A Child
By Elder Albert E. Bowen
(Editor's Note: For enrichment of Lesson 42, First Intermediate Department, 1943.)
Sunday was the bright spot in the week for me. It was a day when I put on my Sunday clothes and went into town to Sunday School and to see my friends. I felt that the week was lost, if anything interfered with that Sunday event." So explained Elder Albert E. Bowen, one of the Council of the Twelve Apostles, when he was asked to relate some of the events and recollections of his childhood in Samaria, Idaho.
"I remember quite vividly when I was baptized. We had been thinking and talking about it in the family. I looked forward to it with a good deal of expectation. Just as I was going into the water, father asked: 'Do you know what you are going to be baptized for?' I answered: 'Yes.' I knew that baptism was the way to membership in the Church and was for the forgiveness of sins.
"I was baptized in a running stream down below the town. On baptism day, we walked down through the meadow to the bank of the stream. A little below the place where baptisms were performed was a deep, quiet pool in a bend of the stream where I learned to swim. At this point the stream was over my head.
"I could swim before I was baptized. There were two things that I would rather do as a boy than eat and they were to go swimming and to play baseball.
"Samaria is a little country hamlet situated in Malad Valley, a few miles southwest of Malad. It was laid out with town lots of two and a quarter acres. Our home was on such a lot. We had a good orchard and raised our garden produce here. I was one of the younger boys in the family. While the other boys were working out of town on the hay ranch, it was my job to keep the weeds out of the garden and to water it.
"When I was older, I milked the cows, fed the pigs and did other chores. In the summer we gradually took most of the cows five or six miles out of town to the hay ranch.
"During haying time, Mother or one of my older sisters kept house for father and my older brothers at the ranch and I was left in town to do the chores there.
"At other times when the older boys were away working, I was down at the hay ranch taking care of the cows. Mother or one of my older sisters would be at the ranch also. I remember what a feeling of responsibility I had at such times.
"I had ten or twelve cows to milk morning and evening. We used to let our cows range out into the hills. I had to gather them in, in the evening. Many a time I walked for miles over the hills and into one canyon and then another to find the cows.
"As a reward for getting the morning and evening chores done I was permitted to get cleaned up, put on my best clothes and go into town occasionally. The Fourth of July was one of these memorable days. Sundays were other joyous days of the week, but always I had the responsibility for getting the chores done first, I had to have the job done before I could go. Many times I had to leave a ball game on a holiday afternoon to do my chores and then return to have the evening in town.
"I think my Sunday School meant more to me than anything else in my childhood. Then I would have on my best clothes, such as they were,—I always had a white shirt. I was brought up with a lot of reverence for the Sabbath, day. The meetings of the Sabbath and the little Church were held in great reverence by my folks, and yet I do not remember that they ever did much formal teaching about it. That was the atmosphere of the home. Somehow or other, we children got the lesson.
"My father was a quiet man. He did not say much; he was pretty self-possessed, very industrious and frugal. He never bought anything that he could not afford to pay for. He raised ten children and gave them fair educational opportunities. He never had a mortgage on his farm or home in all his life.
"He was something of a musician. He had a big bass fiddle. With a few others in the town, who played for the town dances, he practiced at our home. He was the first president of the Young Men's Mutual in our town.
"Mother was the first president of the Young Women's Mutual. She used to listen to the girls in town who showed any interest in singing and got groups of them to come to our home where she taught them many songs.
"Naturally most of the memories of my childhood are more intimately associated with my mother. I do not feel that I knew my father well until I was older.
"Father and mother were not particularly demonstrative. I do remember, however, coming into the house from doing the chores one cold winter morning with my fingers tingling with the cold. I blubbered about it and mother took my hands in hers and sympathized with me while she warmed them. I enjoyed that so much that I cried some more so she would keep it up.
"We were never poor in the sense that we ever wanted for food. I can't remember that we did not always have an abundance of food and warm clothing. Mother and father were always careful about that. But we had no luxuries. If we did not have money to buy Christmas presents, mother made them. She never let a Christmas go by without providing something for every child, even if we did not have any money.
"Mother was a great reader. She knew Dickens, Thackeray, Scott, and a good deal of Macaulay. She used to talk about them and their works. We got a chance to read some of the books she liked. "Her father died in London when she was ten years old and she had to go to work. The girls where she worked lent her books, if she would read them and tell the girls the stories. In this way she developed a wonderful memory.
"All of us were taught to read and write at home. We did not go to school to learn that. Mother was the teacher.
"My sons spent three summers on the farm at my boyhood home. I wanted them to know what it is to work. I remember hearing one of them say to his mother, 'Mother, I had no idea it took so much work to raise a little hay to feed a cow to get a little milk.' "
BOYHOOD EXPERIENCES IV. When I Was A Child
By Elder Albert E. Bowen
(Editor's Note: For enrichment of Lesson 42, First Intermediate Department, 1943.)
Sunday was the bright spot in the week for me. It was a day when I put on my Sunday clothes and went into town to Sunday School and to see my friends. I felt that the week was lost, if anything interfered with that Sunday event." So explained Elder Albert E. Bowen, one of the Council of the Twelve Apostles, when he was asked to relate some of the events and recollections of his childhood in Samaria, Idaho.
"I remember quite vividly when I was baptized. We had been thinking and talking about it in the family. I looked forward to it with a good deal of expectation. Just as I was going into the water, father asked: 'Do you know what you are going to be baptized for?' I answered: 'Yes.' I knew that baptism was the way to membership in the Church and was for the forgiveness of sins.
"I was baptized in a running stream down below the town. On baptism day, we walked down through the meadow to the bank of the stream. A little below the place where baptisms were performed was a deep, quiet pool in a bend of the stream where I learned to swim. At this point the stream was over my head.
"I could swim before I was baptized. There were two things that I would rather do as a boy than eat and they were to go swimming and to play baseball.
"Samaria is a little country hamlet situated in Malad Valley, a few miles southwest of Malad. It was laid out with town lots of two and a quarter acres. Our home was on such a lot. We had a good orchard and raised our garden produce here. I was one of the younger boys in the family. While the other boys were working out of town on the hay ranch, it was my job to keep the weeds out of the garden and to water it.
"When I was older, I milked the cows, fed the pigs and did other chores. In the summer we gradually took most of the cows five or six miles out of town to the hay ranch.
"During haying time, Mother or one of my older sisters kept house for father and my older brothers at the ranch and I was left in town to do the chores there.
"At other times when the older boys were away working, I was down at the hay ranch taking care of the cows. Mother or one of my older sisters would be at the ranch also. I remember what a feeling of responsibility I had at such times.
"I had ten or twelve cows to milk morning and evening. We used to let our cows range out into the hills. I had to gather them in, in the evening. Many a time I walked for miles over the hills and into one canyon and then another to find the cows.
"As a reward for getting the morning and evening chores done I was permitted to get cleaned up, put on my best clothes and go into town occasionally. The Fourth of July was one of these memorable days. Sundays were other joyous days of the week, but always I had the responsibility for getting the chores done first, I had to have the job done before I could go. Many times I had to leave a ball game on a holiday afternoon to do my chores and then return to have the evening in town.
"I think my Sunday School meant more to me than anything else in my childhood. Then I would have on my best clothes, such as they were,—I always had a white shirt. I was brought up with a lot of reverence for the Sabbath, day. The meetings of the Sabbath and the little Church were held in great reverence by my folks, and yet I do not remember that they ever did much formal teaching about it. That was the atmosphere of the home. Somehow or other, we children got the lesson.
"My father was a quiet man. He did not say much; he was pretty self-possessed, very industrious and frugal. He never bought anything that he could not afford to pay for. He raised ten children and gave them fair educational opportunities. He never had a mortgage on his farm or home in all his life.
"He was something of a musician. He had a big bass fiddle. With a few others in the town, who played for the town dances, he practiced at our home. He was the first president of the Young Men's Mutual in our town.
"Mother was the first president of the Young Women's Mutual. She used to listen to the girls in town who showed any interest in singing and got groups of them to come to our home where she taught them many songs.
"Naturally most of the memories of my childhood are more intimately associated with my mother. I do not feel that I knew my father well until I was older.
"Father and mother were not particularly demonstrative. I do remember, however, coming into the house from doing the chores one cold winter morning with my fingers tingling with the cold. I blubbered about it and mother took my hands in hers and sympathized with me while she warmed them. I enjoyed that so much that I cried some more so she would keep it up.
"We were never poor in the sense that we ever wanted for food. I can't remember that we did not always have an abundance of food and warm clothing. Mother and father were always careful about that. But we had no luxuries. If we did not have money to buy Christmas presents, mother made them. She never let a Christmas go by without providing something for every child, even if we did not have any money.
"Mother was a great reader. She knew Dickens, Thackeray, Scott, and a good deal of Macaulay. She used to talk about them and their works. We got a chance to read some of the books she liked. "Her father died in London when she was ten years old and she had to go to work. The girls where she worked lent her books, if she would read them and tell the girls the stories. In this way she developed a wonderful memory.
"All of us were taught to read and write at home. We did not go to school to learn that. Mother was the teacher.
"My sons spent three summers on the farm at my boyhood home. I wanted them to know what it is to work. I remember hearing one of them say to his mother, 'Mother, I had no idea it took so much work to raise a little hay to feed a cow to get a little milk.' "
Bennion, Milton. "Albert E. Bowen." Instructor. June 1946. pg. 260.
Albert E. Bowen
MILTON BENNION
ELDER Albert E. Bowen, whose picture appears on the cover of this issue of The Instructor, is the author of the lessons for the Gospel Doctrine class for the second half of this year. Brother Bowen by reason of his varied experiences, his training, and his position in the Church, is exceptionally well qualified to write the Church Welfare lessons. His childhood and youth were spent under pioneer conditions on a farm in Idaho as a member of a large family. His parents were converts from Wales and London respectively. In their teens each had walked across the plains to join the body of the Church. These experiences gave the ten children of this sturdy and intelligent couple sympathetic understanding of those who live in humble circumstances and earn their living by hard labor.
It was by constant industry and rigid economy that Albert E. Bowen was able to satisfy his ambition to secure liberal and professional education. At the Brigham Young College at Logan he earned with distinction the degree Bachelor of Arts. After this he filled -a three-year mission to Germany. This was followed by several years' teaching in the Brigham Young College with every assurance of a distinguished career as an educator. He chose, however, to study kw- In 1911 he was graduated from the University of Chicago with the degree of Doctor of Jurisprudence, and was one of three members of this class selected for membership in the legal honorary fraternity, "The Order of the Coif."
He practiced law in Logan for several years, manifesting such ability and good judgment that in 1916 he was nominated by the Republican party for the office of a Justice of the State Supreme Court. It happened that year that the opposition party won the state election.
In 1920 he moved to Salt Lake City and became a member of a prominent law firm, one that dealt with national and international as well as local business.
Brother Bowen has been an active and very dependable church worker all his life. He served four years as stake superintendent of Sunday Schools in Cache Stake, and in 1922 was appointed a member of the general board of the Deseret Sunday School Union where he gave very efficient service until he was appointed General Superintendent of the Young Men's- Mutual Improvement Association in 1935. In April 1937 he was chosen a member of the Quorum of the Twelve. He is one of two members of this Quorum appointed as advisers to the Church Welfare Organization.
Albert E. Bowen
MILTON BENNION
ELDER Albert E. Bowen, whose picture appears on the cover of this issue of The Instructor, is the author of the lessons for the Gospel Doctrine class for the second half of this year. Brother Bowen by reason of his varied experiences, his training, and his position in the Church, is exceptionally well qualified to write the Church Welfare lessons. His childhood and youth were spent under pioneer conditions on a farm in Idaho as a member of a large family. His parents were converts from Wales and London respectively. In their teens each had walked across the plains to join the body of the Church. These experiences gave the ten children of this sturdy and intelligent couple sympathetic understanding of those who live in humble circumstances and earn their living by hard labor.
It was by constant industry and rigid economy that Albert E. Bowen was able to satisfy his ambition to secure liberal and professional education. At the Brigham Young College at Logan he earned with distinction the degree Bachelor of Arts. After this he filled -a three-year mission to Germany. This was followed by several years' teaching in the Brigham Young College with every assurance of a distinguished career as an educator. He chose, however, to study kw- In 1911 he was graduated from the University of Chicago with the degree of Doctor of Jurisprudence, and was one of three members of this class selected for membership in the legal honorary fraternity, "The Order of the Coif."
He practiced law in Logan for several years, manifesting such ability and good judgment that in 1916 he was nominated by the Republican party for the office of a Justice of the State Supreme Court. It happened that year that the opposition party won the state election.
In 1920 he moved to Salt Lake City and became a member of a prominent law firm, one that dealt with national and international as well as local business.
Brother Bowen has been an active and very dependable church worker all his life. He served four years as stake superintendent of Sunday Schools in Cache Stake, and in 1922 was appointed a member of the general board of the Deseret Sunday School Union where he gave very efficient service until he was appointed General Superintendent of the Young Men's- Mutual Improvement Association in 1935. In April 1937 he was chosen a member of the Quorum of the Twelve. He is one of two members of this Quorum appointed as advisers to the Church Welfare Organization.
Evans, Richard L. "Albert E. Bowen: A Lesson From One Man's Life." Improvement Era. November 1952. pg. 792-795, 845-846.
Albert E. Bowen A LESSON FROM ONE MANS LIFE by Richard L. Evans OF THE FIRST COUNCIL OF THE SEVENTY We present this story of him not so much for his sake—although his record richly deserves it; but we present it, as he would have us do, for the counsel and comfort and encouragement of a generation of young people who are wrestling with difficult days. To understand Albert E. Bowen and some of his distinguishing qualities of character, it may be well to go back a century or so to see some of his antecedents. It may be well to begin by going back some ninety-six years to see David Bowen, a convert from Wales, walking with a handcart company across the plains, a thousand miles, for his faith, leaving all behind and not looking back. Then we could come down four years to the year 1860 to see a lovely, warm-hearted girl, recently of London, England, Annie Shackleton by name—a girl of twenty years who loved the finer things of life—walking across the plains with an ox-team company. It was she of whom Brother Bowen has recorded: "Her written and spoken English was chaste and proper. Her treasures of memory were the branches that ran over the wall, and blossomed in the deserts of the west. They were the intellectual oases in an otherwise barren wilderness to which the children turned for inspiration and by which they were fired with ambition to achieve. All this, and much more could be said of her, notwithstanding that she was the youngest of nine children, five surviving, and worked, along with her widowed mother, from the time that she was ten, and had no formal schooling. Her brief, self- told story, privately printed after her death in Logan, Utah, at the age of eighty-eight, is well worth reading." [This story appears on page 808 of this issue.] If we shall look into the hearts and lives and faith and courage and conviction of these two, David and Annie Shackleton Bowen, who found one another on the new frontier, and who married and reared ten children in a log cabin on a frontier farm, we shall find emerging a composite portrait and shall begin to see something of the materials that have gone into the making of an uncommon man—Albert Ernest Bowen, who arrived on the family scene on the last day of October 1875, at an obscure and unpromising outpost, Henderson Creek, near Samaria, Idaho, as the seventh child of the family. Faith and work and frugality were the family fare on the farm on which he was reared. He learned about the real values of real things and of the toil it takes to bring them into being. He learned about wrestling with nature for the family food. Spending-money was almost unknown, but wheat from the family bin served many purposes—as food, and as a medium of trade for such essentials as were available. As a boy Albert Bowen helped his father freight grain and produce to Ogden, Collinston, Corrine, when he was barely old enough to drive a team. Also as a boy of about ten years he homesteaded one hard winter in Star Valley with his eldest brother, John, a winter in which they lived mostly on venison. Hard work, serious purpose, honor, and an earnest awareness of life's obligations and opportunities were all part of his early discipline and teaching and training. During the years of his youth, an insistent yearning for knowledge had somehow filtered through, from his mother's influence and others', and as he neared the age of twenty, at his own request and following a family council; his father drove him to Logan to attend Brigham Young College, where he was soon followed by his older brother Charles. As he entered this era of his life, he has often described himself as the greenest of the species of "country cousins." Since he had received no previous high-school opportunity it was necessary for him to complete his high school work along with college courses. But it was not long before his real worth, his capacity for concentration, his willingness to work brought results. His appreciation of privileges that had come to him with an insatiable love for learning led him successfully through a college career that culminated in his receiving an A.B. degree from Brigham Young College in 1902, with distinction and high honors. Meanwhile, he had become a part-time member of the Brigham Young College faculty with the opportunity to teach as well as to learn. Some would say that this was already a late start, since he was nearing twenty-seven years of age, unmarried, and uncommitted to any career. But, what follows could offer much encouragement in many ways to the youth today who are discouraged by the delays of life. He had met Aletha E. Reeder of Hyde Park, Utah, whom he married immediately following graduation. This might have seemed the time for settling down, but he accepted the call that came to serve the Church as a missionary in Switzerland and Germany. For this he left his young wife, who herself was full of faith, and who, with small earnings, helped to keep him on his mission. The record shows, and his companions testify, that he did his work with the thoroughness and devotion and earnestness of purpose with which he has done everything in life. The more than two years that he remained in the mission field would bring him near to the age of twenty-nine (mentioned again for the encouragement of those who are impatient with the seeming interruptions and delays of life). Upon his return home he was sought after and accepted a position on the faculty of Brigham Young College at Logan. Here he served as a successful teacher who touched the hearts and helped to bring a wholesome hunger to the minds of the young people who came within the sphere of his influence. But soon there came a sudden and severe sorrow and loss in his life. In 1905, in giving birth to twin sons, Albert R. and Robert R., their young and lovely mother died. With this sorrow and this added responsibility, the career he was carving out for himself was much more difficult but not deserted. With the kind of fixed purpose and determined courage for which he has been known for some three-quarters of a century, Albert E. Bowen entered the Chicago School of Law in 1908. His intended destination when he left for the East was Harvard, where he planned to pursue the study of history and to follow the teaching profession. However, during a stopover in Chicago he met Dean Hall of the Law School of the University of Chicago, who was impressed with the young man from Utah and persuaded him to stop and study law at Chicago. Brother Bowen finished at Chicago in 1911 with the degree of Doctor of Jurisprudence and with added honors as one of the three members of his class to be elected to the Order of the Coif, a distinguished legal fraternity for those who excel in the study of law. Let it be noted here that he was then nearing thirty-six. Let it also be noted (for the sake of young people who feel that they have lost hopelessly much of their lives if they don't have their preparation and training behind them in their teens or twenties) that a late start may be a great beginning—if the elements of earnestness and industry are included. As an accredited lawyer back in Logan, Brother Bowen became a member of the firm of Nebeker, Thatcher, and Bowen and served the community and won its confidence. He became particularly sought after in matters pertaining to irrigation law. He has left his imprint on much of the irrigation law of Utah and in Idaho. He was connected with much litigation for irrigation companies involving the use of the Bear River for power and other purposes. He was elected Cache County attorney for two terms and in 1916 received the Republican nomination as a candidate for the Supreme Court of the State of Utah. Eleven years after the death of his first wife, Brother Bowen met and married Emma Lucy Gates, a great artist in her own right. She kept for him a home of unusual interest and activity where distinguished company came and went, where there was culture and a love of learning and a buoyant appreciation of the finer things of life as well as an abiding faith in its ultimate objectives. He found pride in and appreciation for her notable career, as she found pride in appreciation for his quiet and capable distinction. Together they reared and taught his two sons who filled missions where their father had filled his mission and who have followed in his footsteps in the legal profession. Friends induced the Bowen family to come to Salt Lake City where he became a law partner of two other 794 uncommon men of legal mind, President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., and Preston D. Richards, in the firm of Clark, Richards, and Bowen. Brother Bowen set up the articles of incorporation for many substantial and enduring businesses. He was a trusted and valued adviser of the Eccles interests, and was attorney for the Utah Construction Company. He had much to do with the Six Companies' contract in the building of the Hoover Dam. He served insurance companies and building and loan interests, and organized the American Savings and Loan Association of which he was once president. He has been a trusted professional counselor to whom people have opened their hearts with their most intimate personal problems, knowing that his judgment would be considered and that their confidences would be kept. One of his great qualities and characteristics has been the keeping of confidences. Friends or clients could place in his hands the most delicate and difficult things affecting their lives and their fortunes without fear of any betrayal of trust or without fear that even an inadvertent utterance would expose their problems or position. Normal working hours had no meaning for him. He expected and took little surcease from labor. He pored over the problems of his clients at the office and at home far into the hours of the night, and made a practice of being always early at the office. In court and out he has been tenacious for truth and deliberate in judgment and stubborn in his insistent search for facts. No man ever rushed A. E. Bowen into a hasty decision or into speaking a loose sentence or a rash word. His opponents may have been exasperated by his deliberateness at times, but they always respected his appraisal of actual evidence and his ethics and honor and honesty, for when he has said that something was so, it has been because he has long considered it and believed it to be so. These and other qualities won for him an enviable eminence as a trial lawyer as well as a valued counselor in corporate and personal problems. In 1928 he was made president of the Utah Bar Association, with a term the previous year as vice president of that organization. He has enjoyed and still enjoys the deep-rooted respect of his associates in the practice and profession of law. He also served in the law school as a part-time teacher at the University of Utah and is fondly and favorably remembered by his students there as elsewhere. He currently serves as a director and member of the executive committee of the Utah- Idaho Sugar Co., the Radio Service Corporation of Utah, and the First National Bank of Salt Lake City. He has been a director, president, and chairman of the board of the Deseret News, and is a director of the Utah Fuel Company, and a trustee of Brigham Young University. In all his professional and civic service and in all his personal and family activities and obligations, he has never lost sight of the faith of his fathers, which is his faith and which has provided the moving power and unswerving objective of his life. Always he has had the courage and the wisdom to keep his life well-balanced and to reserve some of his time and means to the service of his Father in heaven. Always he has been actively identified with the purposes and organizations and activities of the Church. His own childhood was filled with its faith and influence. His missionary service came at a difficult and inconvenient time — but with him there was no turning back. He served as superintendent of the Cache Stake Sunday School for four years before coming to Salt Lake City. He served in the cause of the Religion Classes and served some twelve years as a member of the general board of the Deseret Sunday School Union from which important position he was released to become general superintendent of the Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association in 1935, succeeding President George Albert Smith. Those who sat on that board under his leadership, testify of his dignity, ability, faithfulness, forthrightness, and considerate concern for all the problems and all the people—and of the sincere affection in which he is held by his associates. His next move in Church service was his call to become a member of the Council of the Twelve Apostles in April 1937, to which position President Grant called him at his office one conference morning with virtually no notice. Notwithstanding NOVEMBER 1952 it meant the closing of a beloved legal career, again for him there was no turning back. Few who heard it will forget the simple eloquent utterance with which he responded to that call on that conference morning over fifteen years ago—an utterance of less than five minutes, which gave evidence of an impressive outpouring of restrained power, of devotion and sacrifice and faith and conviction uttered with an unforgettable impact in a few choicely chosen words. He has since served the Church in innumerable ways: in the Welfare Program, (for which he wrote a course of study) in the field of education; in business, in legal matters, and his wise counsel has been felt on a wide front. A series of radio talks he gave has become a valued book: Constancy Amid Change. And he himself has become beloved, respected, and appreciated throughout the wide reaches of the wards and stakes and missions. As to some personal impressions: Albert E. Bowen has a rare and wonderful humor, not overdone, but in the tenseness of meetings and in private conversation and company the incisive thrust of his sharp, quick comment is likely to clarify confusion, and to bring the discussion back to its real point and purpose, often to be followed by tension-relieving laughter. And it is not a common or a "canned" humor—not the telling of other peoples' stories—but his own succinctly suitable observations. On first knowing, or on insufficient knowing, some may assume that he is formal and even formidable, but under this gentlemanly formality and sincere reserve are a warm affection and an understanding heart, and even at times a wistfulness. Sometimes when he has been particularly discouraged with some situation or disillusioned by some set of circumstances, he has been heard with wry half-humor and half-seriousness to say, "Sometimes I wish I had never left the farm." He is a defender of the oppressed and of the falsely and the quickly accused. He will rise indignantly against hearsay and determinedly discount and discourage loose talk and gossip and false and superficial assumption. He hates character assassination and the judging and misjudging of men who are given no opportunity to answer their accusers or to defend themselves. He has been known to rise in wrath against those who loosely accuse others. He is tenacious for generous but just judgment. He is loyal to friends, and when they go to him in their need, he is not voluble in saying what he may or will do for them, but they may know that having presented a just problem before him, they have in him a tenacious defender in any council or court. Had Brother Bowen been of a seeking temperament he might have gone far in public position. But his has been the success of sheer merit, hard work, of a keen mind, of a great character, of a love of truth, of an earnest appraisal of real things, and discriminating devotion to the lasting values of life. He is a princely and an uncommon man, who has shown the strength and accomplishment of a steady, straight, consistent course, and his career is an encouraging example to those who are willing to work, who are tenacious for truth, and who have worthy ultimate objectives, no matter how late in life they may begin or how long it may take to see the desired end. Albert E. Bowen offers an inspiration to the young people of this generation for what he has done since he left a log cabin on a frontier farm, steadily to pursue his purposes, and accepted each call of his Church. He had achieved high aims and ends by means never hasty, never deviating from a course of quiet, consistent courage, and devotion to truth. |
Elder Albert E. Bowen
Aletha Reeder Bowen (deceased), first wife of Albert E. Bowen and the mother of his twin sons.
The Bowen Family about 1930. Left to right: Albert R. Bowen;
Albert E.; Lucy Gates Bowen (deceased), and Robert R. Bowen. The two sons are twins. David Bowen, father of Albert E. Bowen.
Annie Shackleton Bowen, mother of Elder Bowen.
Albert E. Bowen at the time he was a practicing attorney.
The mother, brothers and sisters of Albert E. Bowen as they appeared about 1927; front row, left to right: Walter F. Bowen, David J. Bowen, Lewis J. Bowen; second row, Emma Bowen Young, Annie Shackleton Bowen, mother of the family, and Agnes Bowen Waldron; third row, C. F. Bowen, Albert E. Bowen, Mary Bowen Hawkins, and Edith Bowen.
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Zobell, Albert L., Jr. "A. E. Bowen--1875-1953." Improvement Era. September 1953. pg. 652-653, 696, 698.
A. E. Bowen—1875-1953 by Albert L. Zobell, Jr. RESEARCH EDITOR Albert E. Bowen possessed five outstanding qualities from which 1 spring all the virtues: first, a gentleman, openly loyal and of an affable demeanor; second, thorough in his work and dependable; third, of sound judgment; fourth, sincere; and fifth, reverence. These were the words of President David O. McKay read in tribute to Elder Albert Ernest Bowen of the Council of the Twelve as he spoke at Brother Bowen's funeral services held in the Salt Lake Tabernacle July 18. "No one I know has ever heard this great man speak lightly about anything sacred," he said. "I've loved learning and constantly sought further knowledge," said President J. Reuben Clark, Jr. "He sought truth. He wasted no time with mere words. He had a logical mind and did not deviate but went directly to the point. He had a judicial temperament. He examined facts and gave a judicial decision. . . . He loved the gospel; it was his life, and he lived it as the Lord gave him power to live it." ELDER Mark E. Petersen, an associate of Elder Bowen in the Council of the Twelve, and who, for many years was also associated with him at the Deseret News Publishing Company, believed that he learned a great lesson from Elder Bowen. When a problem would arise, Brother Bowen would ask, "What are the facts? Get all the facts, for there is no substitute for facts." Elder Petersen went on to quote Elder Bowen as recalling: "I must have been very small, because my older brothers and sisters were at school and I was not. It was before I was permitted to go to school, at least in the wintertime. "To amuse me and keep me out from under her feet, my mother gave me some little brilliants in a bottle, something like the stage jewelry we 652 have. I was treasuring it and thinking what a good time I was going to have when my brothers and sisters came home, to show them what I had. Perhaps I thought I could make them envious. I don't know. But I know it was uppermost in my mind to exhibit it. "But I lost it. I hunted everywhere, but I could not find it. I thought of the story of Joseph Smith's going into the woods to pray. There were no woods near my home, except in the canyons. But we did burn wood for fuel. My father, mother, and brothers used to go in the fall to cut logs and put them in a pile near the house, and that was my idea of the woods. "So I went out to that woodpile and knelt down and asked the Lord to tell me how to find that bottle. When I came back through the gate and turned the corner of the house, there it was, standing there staring up at me, and I couldn't miss it. "I have never since had any doubt or misgivings about the Lord nor his approachability." President Richard L. Evans of the First Council of the Seventy summarizes his life in these words: "His life in some ways would seem to be a sermon to a generation of young people who face serious uncertainties and are sometimes impatient with the delays of life. . . . His was a late start—which he overcame magnificently with a steady course: He was twenty years of age before he began his high school work; twenty-seven before he received his first college degree; married before he went on his mission; twenty-nine when he returned; a widower at thirty with two infant sons; thirty-three before he started the study of law; thirty-six before he received a degree in jurisprudence with highest honors at the University of Chicago. And with that late start, years behind what most young men would these days consider essential—with all this, he rose to unusual eminence, professionally and personally. With all of this he proved a great point and principle; that hard work and high purpose are more important than traveling fast in deviating directions." Over a year ago, on June 25, 1952, Elder Bowen was first stricken with the ailment that took his life. Three days before, on June 22, this author attended the quarterly conference of the Salt Lake Stake of Zion, at which a vigorous Brother Bowen was the representative of the General Authorities. Hurrying to the evening session on Temple Square, I made note that tonight we'd hear the gospel— phrased in beautiful words. And that night a gospel principle in all its beauty and simplicity came from Elder Bowen's lips. As he started to sum up, I wondered where the time had disappeared. Then he was saying: "I came here fully prepared to speak on another subject, but some of you people in the congregation must have been praying to the Lord for an answer to some problems. And so I have been inspired to give you this. ..." Truly, as Elder Petersen quoted Elder Bowen, "I have never . . . had any doubt or misgivings about the Lord nor his approachability." Elder Albert E. Bowen was born October 31, 1875 at Henderson Creek, in southern Idaho, the seventh child of David and Annie Shackleton Bowen. A log cabin was his first home; the rigors of farm life formed his heritage. As a boy barely old enough to drive a team, A. E. Bowen was aiding his father in freighting grain and produce to Ogden, Collinston, and Corrine, all railroading points in Utah. Also, when he was about ten, he spent one hard winter twin sons—sons who were to be reared and to fulfil honorable missions in the same area where their father had served. Eleven years after the death of his first wife, Elder Bowen married Emma Lucy Gates, a great artist in her own right. Meanwhile, in 1911, he had been graduated from the law school of the University of Chicago with the degree of doctor of jurisprudence. He served as superintendent of the Cache Stake Sunday School for four years before coming to Salt Lake City to become a law partner of J. Reuben Clark, Jr., and Preston D. Richards. He taught some of the religion classes and served some twelve years as a member of the general board of the Deseret Sunday School Union. He was chairman of that board's important missionary training committee. In January 1935 he was called as general superintendent of the Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association. He was the first elder not a member of the General Authorities of the Church, to head a Church auxiliary organization. He was sustained at the April 1937 general conference as a member of the Council of the Twelve. Here he traveled much, as his duties took him to the stakes and the North American missions of the Church. At the beginning of World War II Elder Bowen, accompanied by Elder Harold B. Lee of the Council of the Twelve, and by Elder Hugh B. Brown visited military installations and camps all over the country and exercised a great influence in the initial phases of getting the Church servicemen's program underway. Until several years ago Brother Bowen was a member of the Church expenditures committee and gave valuable financial and legal advice to the Church in all of its financial matters and in the building of new chapels. He was a member of the Church auditing committee. He was one of the champions of the Church welfare program and had long been one of the advisers to the plan. He had given untiring service to the Church as a member of the Church board of education, as a trustee of Brigham Young University, and as a director and officer of several institutions with which the Church is identified. Brother Bowen's life span reached from October 31, 1875 to July 15, 1953—-a lifetime in which he spent his time and talents well to strengthen the position of the restored Church in all the earth. His death was preceded by an illness of more than a year. His wife, Emma Lucy Gates Bowen, died in April 1951. Surviving him are two sons and six grandchildren. |
Albert Ernest Bowen—October 31, 1875 -July 15, 1958
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"Constant Amid the Changes." Instructor. September 1953. pg. 266-267.
Constant Amid the Changes WHEREVER he helped in the affairs of men, no problem was ever settled until it was settled with justice and honesty. That was the characteristic attitude of Elder Albert E. Bowen of the Council of the Twelve of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A wise counselor to all, he served the Church with distinction until his final illness which ended July 15, 1953. For many years he served the cause of the Sunday Schools with enthusiasm. After long service on the Cache Stake Sunday School Board, he was selected for the General Board of the Sunday Schools. He served oh the Deseret Sunday School General Board for 13 years. After his appointment as an Apostle, his interest in the Sunday Schools did not diminish. Here are a few glimpses of this kind and just man: A TOWER OF STRENGTH "WHEN Elder Albert E. Bowen gave his radio talks over KSL, he entitled the series "Constancy Amid Change." In his sermons he showed the constancy of the power of God through all the vicissitudes of man. Elder Bowen was like that title, always dependable, always firm, never daunted by the storms of life. He stood among his fellow men like the Rock of Gibraltar. He was a tower of strength, a reservoir of wisdom, and an anchor and a refuge for those less fortunate than himself. —Elder Mark E. Petersen, of the Council of the Twelve WITH SCRUPULOUS CARE "THERE was a heap of living in each day that I worked for Elder Albert Bowen. He had the art of making me feel completely at ease. His reserved, sweet, quiet way of greeting me each morning with a smile was something I shall always remember. He had a deep sense of right and wrong. I was particularly impressed when he wrote The Welfare Plan, a manual for the Sunday Schools of the Church. He used scrupulous care in preparing the information and spent long hours of reading and gathering materials in order that there should be no error in his presentation of the work. Scripture references alone were checked three times in order to insure their correctness. At this time it was necessary for me to put in hours of overtime in order to meet the deadline for publication, and I was always conscious of his consideration of me in the extra hours I spent in typing and the extra Saturdays I put in in order that the work might be ready for his approval on Monday mornings. He was always appreciative. He followed through with determination every project to which he set his hand. This was so true in preparing the radio talks he gave and in the two books he wrote while I was with him. He was possessed of the choicest human virtues. The elements so nicely blended that I found in him the perfect gentleman. The four-and-a-half years I spent as secretary with Brother Bowen were among the most educational and most enjoyable years of my life. —Mary B. Timmins, Elder Bowen's Secretary. LEARNED FROM OTHERS One of the qualities that brought success to our grandfather, Albert E. Bowen, was his deep humility. He was never too proud to learn from the experiences of others. He endeavored to teach this same lesson to us, his grandchildren. At a family gathering, David, his oldest grandson, was playing with marbles. Grandfather tried to tell him a better way to shoot, but David insisted that he knew everything about the games of marbles. In order to teach the lesson of learning from others to David, Grandfather challenged him to a marble game. They knelt on the floor and in a short time Grandfather won all the marbles from David. David was not the only one among us who was taught a lesson in learning that day. —Barbara and Angela Bowen, Granddaughters. TIME BECAME A SERVANT TIME to Elder Albert E. Bowen was something that became increasingly important and valuable. He was called to the general superintendency of the YMMIA at a time when he was at the height of his busy and profitable legal career. Sometimes the meetings must have seemed to move slowly. One evening a board member approached Elder Bowen before meeting convened. "If the meeting continues longer than six o'clock," he said, "I should like to be excused." Elder Bowen's eyes sparkled, and with his droll sense of humor emerging he issued this quietly penetrating statement, "So should we all." Although time was important to Elder Bowen, he never begrudged a single moment when he knew that he was doing something needed or worthy. When the Brigham Young statue was placed in Washington, D.C. a souvenir program was published by the government to commemorate the event. Elder Bowen was asked to write a brief, biographical sketch of Brigham Young. In the midst of his other multitudinous duties, he worked on this biography, carefully and painstakingly. Even when it was ready, and he had called to have it picked up to air mail back to the government printing office, he went over it yet again. At the time he was having some difficulty with his eyes, and cupping his hands over them, he read the material critically, changing a word here, a phrase there. When it finally appeared in print, it was a masterpiece, succinct yet complete. It was such thorough weighing of what, he said and wrote that made him relied upon by the Church membership at large. People realized that they could depend on what he had prepared; his seasoned mind had taken time for a careful evaluation of that which he said or wrote. Time became the servant, not the master, of Elder Albert E. Bowen. —Marba C. Josephson, Associate Managing Editor, The Improvement Era. NEVER ONCE TOO BUSY To me, few finer men have ever lived—certainly no finer friend. "A. E." as my wife and I affectionately used to call him, was one of the first people we came to know on our arrival in Utah. He with his dear wife, Emma Lucy Gates Bowen, from that first day remained our much loved advisers. They never failed to give us generously of their rich experience in our new lives. How many errors they saved us from we shall never know. Hardly a week went by that we did not visit, if only over the telephone. Never once was he "too busy." Let others tell of his many, genius-like gifts, of his well deserved fame. I remember him as a friend whose memory will never fade. —Vivian Meik, Columnist, The Deseret News and Correspondent for The London Daily Mirror and Odham's Groups. ALBERT E. BOWEN ELDER Albert E. Bowen of the Council of the Twelve of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was bom Oct. 31, 1875, at Henderson Creek, Ida. His parents, David and Annie Shackleton Bowen, were converts to the Church and had crossed the plains as pioneers. His father crossed by handcart in 1856 and his mother came in 1861. His elementary education was received in Idaho and Cache Valley, Utah. Encouragement from his devoted mother was a prime factor in furthering his education. He entered Brigham Young College in Logan, winning his B.A. degree from there in 1902. While obtaining his education there. Elder Bowen was an instructor on the faculty. Upon graduation, he fulfilled a mission to Germany for the Church. After completing his call (1904), he accepted a position on the faculty of Brigham Young University at Provo. He remained in the field of education until 1908, when he changed his career and entered the University of Chicago to study law. He was granted his Doctor of Jurisprudence in 1911 at that institution. Upon graduation he was elected to the honorary fraternity, "The Coif." Returning to Logan he practiced law until the fall of 1920. He then came to Salt Lake City to engage in his profession with the firm of Clark, Richards and Bowen. Active in politics in Logan, he was twice elected Cache County attorney. As a church man he gave faithful and distinguished service. He was a member of the Cache Stake Sunday School Board for many years, which prepared him for his later appointment to the Deseret Sunday School Union General Board. He continued in this capacity for 13 years until January, 1935. He was then appointed general superintendent of the Young Men's Mutual Improvement Assn., and April 6, 1937, he was called and sustained as an Apostle of the Church. Here he served with distinction until June 25, 1952, when he was stricken ill. As a brave but patient sufferer he survived until July 15, 1953. He died at the age of 77 having served 16 years as a member of the Council of the Twelve. Elder Bowen was married to Elitha W. Reeder in 1902. They were the parents of two sons, Albert R. and Robert R. In 1906 Elitha died, and he married Emma Lucy Gates Bowen, one of Utah's premier sopranos. She died in April, 1951. His keen and analytical mind, his kind and understanding nature and his immaculate honesty made him a wise counselor in the practical and spiritual affairs of life. -B.E.O. HE CHARACTERIZED LIBERTY WHEN I think of Elder Albert E. Bowen, I recall many outstanding characteristics: His manliness His mental vigor His scholarly approach His anchorage in principle His graciousness But for present purposes, I am mindful of his love of liberty. His studies through the years had built into his soul a firm determination to perpetuate the constitutional legacy bequeathed us by our Revolutionary Fathers. Their ideals, their struggles, their achievements took on a rare sanctity in his thinking. When later, he struck hands in a law firm with J. Reuben Clark, Jr. and Preston D. Richards, all of his early resolutions seemed to find a sustaining reinforcement. And so he became a great champion of American freedom. I can hear him now as he gave expression to those memorable lines: "Liberty is not bestowed — it is achieved. It is not a gift — it is a conquest. It does not abide — it must be preserved." I suggest to my young friends that they memorize those three lines and then weave them into the pattern of their thinking. —Adam S. Bennion, Member of the Council of the Twelve. |
Elder Albert E. Bowen
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Petersen, Mark E. "In Memoriam--Elder Albert E. Bowen (October 31, 1875 - July 15, 1953)." Instructor. September 1953. pg. 582-583.
In Memoriam—Elder Albert E. Bowen (October 31, 1875 - July 15, 1953)
Elder Mark E. Petersen Of the Council of the Twelve
THE people of the Church and of the entire West will sorely miss Elder Albert E. Bowen of the Council of the Twelve who passed away at his home in Salt Lake City, Wednesday morning, July 15, 1953.
But even in death his steadying hand will bear its wholesome influence upon those who knew him. His common sense, his stability of character, his humor, his fairness, and his simple faith will linger through the years to further shape the lives of those who were fortunate enough to be within the circle of his influence.
Brother Bowen literally 'arose from the soil." He was farmer born, he learned on the ranch what it meant to bear responsibility, what it meant to work. He had stability so characteristic of the soil and those who work it. There he learned to appreciate the simple but wholesome things in life, and the value of honesty, integrity, and straightforwardness. He dealt in plainness with his fellows. He was a man without guile.
Brother Bowen was a self-made man in the same sense in which Abraham Lincoln was self-made. He, too, had to struggle for his education. He, too, knew the taste of disappointment. He, too, ate ''humble pie." But, also, he arose to heights among his fellows. With high honors, he graduated from a great university as a doctor of jurisprudence and rose to the crest of the legal profession. Yet in it all he was human, humble, understanding, and true. Great as was his powerful intellect, wide as was his learning, his heart was greater.
He had a love which ran deep. It embraced his country, his Church, his friends, and most of all, his family. He constantly gave of himself for others. He did not die for them—but he lived for them. Literally he gave his life—all the years of it—for others. Is there greater love than that?
His faith in God was his outstanding attribute. It was a simple, child-like faith. It was implicit. He had no doubts. And when he prayed, he did so in the spirit of that faith, and it was beautiful.
Not only will he live on in the personal immortality of the eternal world. He will find immortality also in the hearts of us who remain here in this life. His influence will go on and on.
In Memoriam—Elder Albert E. Bowen (October 31, 1875 - July 15, 1953)
Elder Mark E. Petersen Of the Council of the Twelve
THE people of the Church and of the entire West will sorely miss Elder Albert E. Bowen of the Council of the Twelve who passed away at his home in Salt Lake City, Wednesday morning, July 15, 1953.
But even in death his steadying hand will bear its wholesome influence upon those who knew him. His common sense, his stability of character, his humor, his fairness, and his simple faith will linger through the years to further shape the lives of those who were fortunate enough to be within the circle of his influence.
Brother Bowen literally 'arose from the soil." He was farmer born, he learned on the ranch what it meant to bear responsibility, what it meant to work. He had stability so characteristic of the soil and those who work it. There he learned to appreciate the simple but wholesome things in life, and the value of honesty, integrity, and straightforwardness. He dealt in plainness with his fellows. He was a man without guile.
Brother Bowen was a self-made man in the same sense in which Abraham Lincoln was self-made. He, too, had to struggle for his education. He, too, knew the taste of disappointment. He, too, ate ''humble pie." But, also, he arose to heights among his fellows. With high honors, he graduated from a great university as a doctor of jurisprudence and rose to the crest of the legal profession. Yet in it all he was human, humble, understanding, and true. Great as was his powerful intellect, wide as was his learning, his heart was greater.
He had a love which ran deep. It embraced his country, his Church, his friends, and most of all, his family. He constantly gave of himself for others. He did not die for them—but he lived for them. Literally he gave his life—all the years of it—for others. Is there greater love than that?
His faith in God was his outstanding attribute. It was a simple, child-like faith. It was implicit. He had no doubts. And when he prayed, he did so in the spirit of that faith, and it was beautiful.
Not only will he live on in the personal immortality of the eternal world. He will find immortality also in the hearts of us who remain here in this life. His influence will go on and on.
Albert E. Bowen
“…a man of understanding shall attain
unto wise counsels:” –Proverbs 1:5
unto wise counsels:” –Proverbs 1:5
Ordained: 8 April 1937 at age 61 by Heber J. Grant
Biography
Albert “Bert” Ernest Bowen was born 31 October 1875 [His birthdate is sometimes mistakenly listed as in 1876. Official Church records lists it as 1875.] at Henderson Creek, Idaho, the seventh of ten children, to David Bowen and Annie Shackleton. Both of his parents were converts who immigrated to the United States: his father from Wales, immigrating as part of a handcart company, his mother from England. The family was a studious one. The parents instilling a love of books and learning into the children from an early age. His mother taught the classics, his father the works of the Church.
Bert related the following about his mother.
Mother was a great reader. She knew Dickens, Thackeray, Scott, and a good deal of Macaulay. She used to talk about them and their works. We got a chance to read some of the books she liked.
Her father died in London when she was ten years old and she had to go to work. The girls where she worked lent her books, if she would read them and tell the girls the stories. In this way she developed a wonderful memory.
All of us were taught to read and write at home. We did not go to school to learn that. Mother was the teacher. (Bowen, Boyhood Experiences IV. When I Was a Child 1943, 197)
The development of his testimony could be traced back to a single event in his childhood.
I must have been very small, because my older brothers and sisters were at school and I was not. It was before I was permitted to go to school, at least in the wintertime.
To amuse me and keep me out from under her feet, my mother gave me some little brilliants in a bottle, something like the stage jewelry we have. I was treasuring it and thinking what a good time I was going to have when my brothers and sisters came home, to show them what I had. ...
But I lost it. I hunted everywhere, but I could not find it. I thought of the story of Joseph Smith's going into the woods to pray. There were no woods near my home, except in the canyons. But we did burn wood for fuel. My father, mother, and brothers used to go in the fall to cut logs and put them in a pile near the house, and that was my idea of the woods.
So I went out to that woodpile and knelt down and asked the Lord to tell me how to find that bottle. When I came back through the gate and turned the corner of the house, there it was, standing there staring up at me, and I couldn't miss it.
I have never since had any doubt or misgivings about the Lord nor his approachability. (Albert L. Zobell 1953, 652)
He related that he was rather athletically inclined as a child. "I could swim before I was baptized. There were two things that I would rather do as a boy than eat and they were to go swimming and to play baseball." (Bowen, Boyhood Experiences IV. When I Was a Child 1943, 185)
He was grateful for the atmosphere in which he grew up. He related:
I was brought up with a lot of reverence for the Sabbath day. The meetings of the Sabbath and the little Church were held in great reverence by my folks, and yet I do not remember that they ever did much formal teaching about it. That was the atmosphere of the home. Somehow or other, we children got the lesson.
My father was a quiet man. He did not say much; he was pretty self-possessed, very industrious and frugal. He never bought anything that he could not afford to pay for. He raised ten children and gave them fair educational opportunities. He never had a mortgage on his farm or home in all his life. (Bowen, Boyhood Experiences IV. When I Was a Child 1943, 185)
He was no stranger to hard work. In addition to his regular farm chores of his boyhood, at the age of ten, he spent a winter homesteading with his eldest brother in Star Valley, Wyoming. Their diet that winter consisted of mostly venison.
At the age of 20, after a holding a family council, it was decided that Bert and one of his older brothers should go to Logan, Utah, to study at Brigham Young College. After completing his high school diploma, he first studied teaching and later law, graduating with what would be today a BA with distinction and high honors in 1902. Following graduation, he married Aletha E. Reeder. Following his graduation, he was called to serve a two-year mission to Switzerland and Germany.
Upon his return from his mission in 1904, Bert became a member of the faculty of Brigham Young College. His wife, Aletha, died in childbirth to their twin sons, Albert and Robert, in 1905. The twins were Bert’s only children, and eventually both served missions in Switzerland and Germany like their father.
In 1908 Bert went east intending to study history at Harvard and to pursue a career in education. However, during a stopover in Chicago, he met Dean Hall of the Law School of the University of Chicago, who was impressed with him and convinced him to stop and study law at Chicago. He did so, graduating with a Doctor of Jurisprudence with distinction in 1911 and was one of only three of his class selected for membership in the legal honorary fraternity, The Order of the Coif.
The attentive reader will realize that his achievements, while impressive, were not perhaps as timely as some would have expected. Elder Richard L. Evans said this about the timing of Albert E. Bowen’s life:
His was a late start—which he overcame magnificiently [sic] with a steady course: He was twenty years of age before he began his high school work; twenty-seven before he received his first college degree; married before he went on his mission; twenty-nine when he returned; a widower at thirty with two infant sons; thirty-three before he started the study of law; thirty-six before he received a degree in jurisprudence with highest honors at the University of Chicago. And with that late start, years behind what most young men would these days consider essential—with all this, he rose to unusual eminence, professionally and personally. (Albert L. Zobell 1953, 652)
Following his graduation, he began to practice law in Logan, Utah, specializing in irrigation law. He served as county attorney in Cache County for two terms and was nominated in 1916 for the State Supreme Court. At this time, Bert served as the superintendent of the Cache Stake Sunday School Board.
In 1916, Bert remarried, this time Emma Lucy Gates, one of the most famous soloists of the time and granddaughter of President Brigham Young. He moved to Salt Lake City in 1920 and began practicing law there together with J. Reuben Clark, Jr. and Preston D. Richards in the firm of Clark, Richards, and Bowen. He was a very hard-working lawyer and was known to work until late into the night while still being one of the first at the office the following morning.
It was said of him as a lawyer:
In court and out he has been tenacious for truth and deliberate in judgment and stubborn in his insistent search for facts. No man ever rushed A. E. Bowen into a hasty decision or into speaking a loose sentence or a rash word. His opponents may have been exasperated by his deliberateness at times, but they always respected his appraisal of actual evidence and his ethics and honor and honesty, for when he has said that something was so, it has been because he has long considered it and believed it to be so. These and other qualities won for him an enviable eminence as a trial lawyer as well as a valued counselor in corporate and personal problems. (Evans 1952, 794)
In 1922, he was called as a member of the General Board of the Deseret Sunday School Union. In this capacity, he served as chairman of the missionary training committee. He was released from this calling January of 1935 to succeed George Albert Smith as General Superintendent of the Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Association (YMMIA). This was the first time that anyone who was not a general authority served as head of an auxiliary organization.
He traveled to Hawaii the summer of 1936 as part of his calling as General Superintendent of the YMMIA. This was the first time that the head of an auxiliary visited a regularly scheduled conference of a stake outside the continental United States. His wife, Lucy Gates Bowen, having spent five years of her childhood in Hawaii, delighted in the opportunity to sing in Hawaiian, accompanied by the ukulele.
In the April 1937 general conference, Albert E. Bowen was suddenly and surprisingly sustained as a member of the Council of the Twelve Apostles.
Here was his response to his call:
I hope none of you was more shocked at the proceedings of this day so far as they concern myself than was I. I have never regarded myself as a person of particular consequence, and why I should have been asked to assume this responsible position, I do not know.
In my lifetime I have dreamed many dreams, I have nursed many ambitions, but this was never one of them. I have never coveted, never sought, and never desired any preferment in the Church. I have been happy all the days of my life to work in it, and would have been content to remain in places where I would not be forced to occupy public position. But since the call has come, I do what I have always been taught to do, namely, respond, and pledge you that I will give it all my strength. (Bowen 1937, 118)
As part of his duties as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, he served as an advisor to the Church Welfare Program, for which he also wrote a course of study. This was quite significant work during World War II and the aftermath of war, where so many people were in need of the basic necessities of life.
At the beginning of World War II, he, along with Elders Harold B. Lee and Hugh B. Brown, visited the military installations and camps all over the country to get the Church’s servicemen’s program underway.
Elder Bowen also served as a member of the Church expenditures committee and Church auditing committee, giving invaluable legal advice in all financial matters.
Around this time, Elder Bowen gave an eloquent series of radio programs which were later compiled and printed in book form entitled Constancy Amid Change.
Then, in April of 1951, his wife, Emma Lucy Gates Bowen, died unexpectedly. Just over a year later, Elder Bowen fell ill of a condition that would eventually be the cause of his death.
Elder Albert E. Bowen died 15 July 1953 of arteriosclerosis after suffering from the effects for more than a year.
Quotes
Elder Albert E. Bowen’s speaking style was one of extreme eloquence. His vocabulary was vast and he used very precise and beautiful language. It was so eloquent, in fact, that it was sometimes difficult for the average member to understand. He spoke to the educated first and then repeated his sentiment in easier language typically, or gave an example that amply illustrated his topic, allowing everyone to understand at least what it was he wanted to convey. His eloquence was such that he became one who was often quoted after his death.
He rarely spoke of personal experiences, choosing to focus his talks on pure doctrine. Since he spoke about his own life so rarely, his own preference is taken into account here, and emphasis is placed on his doctrinal words.
The following is a brief example of his extensive vocabulary and the kind of eloquence he exhibited frequently.
We see abundant examples of this all about us today, individuals and whole nations, too, beguiled by the seductive promises of plenty without the trouble and anxiety of care for their own concern, surrendering themselves to the fatuous allurements of deceptive demagogues or to the blighting tyrannies of ruthless despots. (Bowen 1948, 91)
He spoke with very little humor, mostly focusing on the serious side of the gospel. His favorite topic was clearly the need for and role of religion in the world at the time he lived. He felt that the Christian world had turned away from religion and that was the cause of all its problems and that conversion would be its cure. Almost every talk he ever gave came back to this same topic in some way.
His final testimony was one of faith that the Church can help heal the world. He spoke about the phenomenon of what happens when the people determine what is right instead of appealing to God. This sermon was very well-remembered and while the following quote is quite long, it has been included here in its entirety because it has been quoted by several general authorities through the years.
So long as the Church [speaking of churches in general in the world] pretends or assumes to preach absolute values, but actually preaches relative and secondary values, it will merely hasten the process of disintegration. We are asked to turn to the church for enlightenment, but when we do so we find that the voice of the church is not inspired. The voice of the church today, we find, is the echo of our own voices, and the result of this experience is disillusionment.
This is the profound and absolute spiritual disillusionment arising from the fact that when we consult the church we only hear what we ourselves have said. The effect of this experience upon the present generation has been profound. It is the effect of a vicious spiral like the economists talk about that leads into depressions, but in this spiral there is at stake not merely prosperity, but civilization.
There is only one way out of that spiral. The way out is the sound of a voice. Not our voice, but a voice coming from something not ourselves, in the existence of which we cannot disbelieve. It is the earthly task of the pastors to hear this voice, to cause us to hear it, and to tell us what it says. If they cannot hear it, or if they fail to tell us, we as laymen are entirely lost. Without it we are no more capable of saving the world than we were of creating it in the first place.
That is a penetrating analysis of the cause for the ills of the world. To gain favor, to enhance our popularity, to avoid giving offense, we have adopted the theories of men and tried to integrate them with the teachings of the Son of God, and they will not mix. …
In my view there is only one safety; there is only one cure; and that is to take the pure and unadulterated word of God and set that up as our standard of measurement, and measure every creed and doctrine and dogma by that yardstick. That which will not square with the declarations of Almighty God we can lay aside as unsuited for the need of man, and orient ourselves again in that declaration of Peter, re-echoed by Paul, by all the disciples of the Christ, so long as his teachings remained undefiled and uncorrupted, and set that up as the guide to our course of life.
Then we shall not have these appeals, we shall not need these appeals to men to modify their governments because their governments will be founded in righteousness, and righteousness will prevail. (Bowen 1952, 66)
He had a profound understanding of the significance of the First Vision. This quote also shows his tendency to see the world in absolutes. Black and white with no middle ground.
We say that the God of heaven came down in answer to the prayer of a boy and that He brought with Him a personage whom He introduced as His son, and He commanded that praying boy to hear His Son. And out of the teachings which were then given, and followed up by subsequent instructions, this Church was established. Now, that admits of no explanation, of no modification. Either those things happened or they did not happen. There is no middle ground; and if they did not happen then we have nothing, because our whole structure is foundationed [sic] upon that assumed fact. We accept it as a fact, and we may not temporize with it, try to explain it away, modify it, or liberalize about it. It stands as the basic thing upon which our whole faith is founded. And our whole system of belief exacts of us that we accept those basic truths, without modification or change. (Bowen 1942, 42)
Elder Bowen understood that every principle was founded upon obedience to a corresponding principle. He seemed to take the concept very seriously and applied it in his own life.
Mastery of natural forces can be achieved only by understanding and observing the laws by which they are governed. It is fair to conclude that spiritual and mental growth can be attained only by obedience to the laws on which they are predicated. If through diligence, observance of correct principles, discipline of the mind and of the spirit, a man attains to a fine development of personality in this life, surely it is not unreasonable to suppose that that will be his imperishable possession and glory in the life he enters upon after death. On the contrary, if through lethargy or sin his self-realization in this life is dwarfed, he shall be handicapped to that extent as he enters upon the new world. (Bowen 1937, 86)
He had a strong belief in the need for hard work applied in every one’s life.
We all have had the disappointing experience of seeing young men of apparently scintillating brilliance fail utterly of achieving the distinction which their natural endowment gave promise of, just as we have been happily surprised at the success gained by some of slower mentality. The difference lies in their differing degrees of industry and endurance. The tenacious, plodding mind has often outrun the quick and apparently more alert one simply because the possessor of the former has been willing to submit himself to the rigid discipline of weary hours of toil which the latter would not endure. Almost we might, it seems to me, lay it down as a working rule that achievement is in proportion to the amount of intelligent effort one is willing to put into an enterprise. (Bowen 1948, 90)
As a lawyer by trade, Elder Bowen was very interested in the topic of justice. The late 1930’s was witnessing the beginning of World War II for much of the world, and Elder Bowen was concerned with the loss of justice in other parts of the world.
Before we import despotic principles into our own land, which are so raucously clamoring for admission, we would better count the costs. Three weeks ago I read one morning the sickening, revolting story of an old world trial where the mockery of it was rendered the more cruel by the observance of outward legal form but devoid of every semblance of justice as known to free men. The sole offense of the accused was political disagreement with the will of the dictator. Then I walked into a United States Court where a Grand Jury was being impanelled. It comprised 16 men of the district of varied stations in life. They were instructed that under the Constitution no one could be called to answer for an offense against the government except upon presentment by a Grand Jury; and that they alone, without fear or favor, without regard to the station of the accused, be it high or low, without extraneous influence of any sort, but solely upon the evidence, must decide whether indictments should be returned.
Thank God for Liberty! (Bowen 1938, 10)
Coming from a legal standpoint, Elder Bowen felt that the law was essential to the world. However, he also felt that if one kept all the commandments of God, there would be no breaking of the laws of the land. He thought that if the Ten Commandments were observed more in his day, then there would be no violations of the law at all.
"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor" (Exodus 20:16) is particularly to be commended to our attention in these electioneering times. If all the falsity and calculated deception were squeezed out of many of the speeches we listen to, they could be reduced to about one minute's duration instead of thirty.
"Thou shalt not covet... any thing that is thy neighbour's." (Exodus 20:17.) The observance of this law would rid the world of most of its strife. Out of a fairly long experience in dealing with the disputations of men, and the causes, I am persuaded that most of them arise out of a covetous desire to obtain some material thing or to reap some advantage to which the contender is not entitled. If everybody wanted to do what he knew was right—deal justly, man to man, and would be content to have what he justly could claim—there wouldn't be much litigation or strife. If applied to the conduct of nations, there would be no war. War results when one nation covets what another nation has or seeks dominion over it. The victim does not want to give up either its possession or its independence. The designing one says, "I am bigger than you," or "I have a bigger or better equipped army so I shall take what I want by force." The other resists, and we have war. (Bowen 1948, 86)
His inquiring mind never took what he read on faith, and he encouraged the people to consider what it is that they read so they have a better idea of what was correct and what was not.
Let's get over the idea of thinking that everything must be true because it is written in a book. It derives no sanctity from being reduced to print. It has no higher validity than the honesty of thought behind it. (Bowen 1946, 181)
Freedom was also uppermost in his mind at the time the world was at war.
Our institutions which protect us in our freedom of thought and of worship were the product of a thousand years of struggle against tyranny. But they have no guarantee of immortality except such guarantee as inheres in the will and the fitness of our people to be free.
Freedom is not bestowed; it is achieved. It is not a gift, but a conquest. It does not abide; it must be preserved. (Bowen 1938, 9)
Despite his own serious nature and the sobering activities of the times, Elder Bowen had an eternal perspective that did not allow him to despair.
Cloudy as the skies may be, I am not one of those who despair for I believe in the triumph of right. In its consummation a leading role must be played by the Church, one of whose prime functions it is to transmute religious truths into living practices. The teachings of those truths and habits of practice becomes then the highest and most solemn duty of every person in the Church, and above all, of all those to whom the responsibility of leadership, in whatever capacity, has come, for therein lies not only the hope for eternity, but the hope of the world for stability and safety, here and now. (Bowen 1939, 96)
As a wartime apostle, Elder Bowen spoke directly about the horrors, consequences and causes of World War II.
Our meeting here this morning seems hopelessly discordant in its purpose with current, all-enveloping happenings. We gather to worship the God of love in the name of His Son, the Prince of Peace. And even as we speak, the whole world is ablaze with the devouring flames of war. At this instant, in far-away places men are locked in a death grapple.
Both in its scope and portent the present conflict dwarfs what we heretofore, out of tribute to its magnitude, have styled the World War, as that eclipsed the wars which had gone before. Scarcely is there a land some of whose citizens have not forfeited their lives. In all the earth, as it was in Ramah, there is heard the voice of lamentation: "Rachel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not." (Bowen 1942, 57)
Perhaps no day now goes by that some home is not made desolate by receipt of a message from the war or navy department beginning: "We regret to inform you...." Then a few phrases about courage, devotion to duty, dying gloriously, and some mother knows the dull heavy thud of a heartbreak signalling blasted hopes for her boy that will not come home again. No one may know what reveries troop through her mind as she sits alone, disconsolate...The boy that lay nestled under her heart, the boy she nourished from her own body during his helpless infancy, the boy for whose future she had dreamed dreams into which were woven the praises of men's tongues as they extolled his achievements and whose children should one day sit upon her knee as she told them the story of his rise to fame.... Now all seems ended, the promise of life cut off, made fruitless, all sacrifices and strivings vain. Her boy is dead, victim of blundering human stupidity in a recreant, wilfully-disobedient world. …
As such mother sits alone with her anguish and reviews the events of the life of her martyred son there may unfold before her vision the scroll upon which are written the experiences of Mary, the mother of the Son of God, and from the final triumph of His life she may draw the sustaining power of hope and faith; for the resurrection is as universal as the race. (Bowen 1944, 126, 128-129)
Commonly we attribute our ills to the war. That is an explanation so ready at hand. War is ugly anyway, and the source of so much evil that it is easy to lump onto it the sole responsibility for all our afflictions. But it is clear that the war is not the root cause of our disorders. It is only a symptom, evidence of a basic ailment which produced it. If the war had been the cause, then the cause would have been removed when the fighting stopped, and we should have had only to convalesce from the sickness. That is not what happened. We seem further from peace now than when the battle was raging. The pressure of the conflict had some cohesive, unifying power which is now wanting. Many small nations seem merely to have changed masters, and their lot is not improved. They seem to have lost all immediate prospect for controlling their own destinies. War is rightly recognized as an evil scourge, and there is a feverish desire to prevent its recurrence. But war arises out of antecedent causes, and the only way to prevent it is to remove those causes. (Bowen 1947, 107-108)
Seeing the attempts of other nations to establish a communist or socialist state, Elder Bowen saw their chances of success very pragmatically.
Many men in this world have worked out patterns for what they conceived to be the ideal State, but when they had finished they found they had no people fitted to live in such state. Jesus saw with unerring clearness that society can be nothing better than a reflection of the men and women who comprise it. The ideal state can come only when created and peopled by men and women who embody its ideals in their lives. His first business, therefore, was with individuals, to teach them how to live, individually and in relation to their fellowmen.
Advancement in that purpose would assure a parallel betterment of the collective body.
The prescription for the kind of living He enjoined involves the control of self within, self-discipline, the supremacy of individual virtues over baser instincts, self-government which raises the individual to a plane where his conduct is above the compulsions of an overhanging law. This is only to say that there is involved the bringing of the finer spiritual qualities of human nature into mastery over its more carnal animal instincts. The fruition comes with a complete spiritual supremacy. (Bowen 1941, 138)
In retrospect, the 1950’s seems today like a time of peace, people doing what they felt was right, putting the horrors of war behind them. However, Elder Bowen saw something else. He saw the deterioration of true Christianity.
But something ominous is happening now. There are disquieting signs that all over Christendom the underpinnings of the Christian faith are being knocked down. The crumbling of the Christian pattern is of grave portent. Ancient supports may be torn away, but what shall buttress us then? It begins to look as though the world is slipping back to the position it held when the Lord commissioned his disciples to carry his message to all the nations. The task again seems to be to get men to believe in him—to get him accepted. There is something highly suggestive about the fact that the upheavals which are threatening the destruction of the civilized world follow so closely on the heels of open denial by professed Christians of belief in Christ as the Son of God and of the divinity of his teachings. (Bowen 1950, 53)
Although story-telling was rare in Elder Bowen’s discourses, he did tell the following story that he had read about in a magazine in order to illustrate his perception of the deterioration of Christianity.
A few years ago I recited from this pulpit the story of a disturbed woman's perplexities. She had just visited a dear friend of her college days who by then had a well-grown daughter and a son. She was both embarrassed and shocked by the behavior of these children. The boy came and went as he pleased, and no questions asked or answered. The mother's admonitions and protests against the indelicate indiscretions of the daughter in her behavior with young men were met with jeers at the mother's prudery and lack of sophistication. The last night of her visit, she was awakened by a disturbance in the house. The girl had come home from a late party thoroughly intoxicated and was leading her escort in like condition to her room when they were intercepted by the aroused parents. A noisy scene ensued before the boy was finally sent off home and the girl put to bed. So the embarrassed visitor went home to clear her head and do some thinking. She remembered the home environment in which she was reared.
The religious note was strong in that home. The Bible was read and believed in. Daily the family on their knees talked to God who was revered and was a reality. They were church-going people and set apart one day a week as a holy day on which to do reverence to the Author of life. They sang majestic hymns which carried messages to their expanding souls. They heard the simple, direct words of the gospels whose grandeur somehow carried over into their hearts and furnished their ideals for living. These ideals, through practice, were silently woven into the pattern of their lives, and they came out with established characters and stable guides to conduct which made them secure against the waves of laxity which washed about them with the passage of time. Her home and family experience were typical of those of the youth of her time, including the friend she had just visited. That friend, along with herself, in the days of their girlhood association had spontaneously as a matter of habit and acceptance observed the conventions and proprieties.
She explained that she and her friend and their associates had in their college years given up the simple faith of their youth, had ceased to give credence to the beliefs which had sustained them, had given up their Bible reading and their church-going and their Sabbath observance and their prayers. They could live the good life without these "artificial props." They didn't need the church. They said they had their own religion, but really it had shriveled up to a mere code of ethics now cut loose from its roots and no longer nourished from the parent stem. Then with an incredible lack of recognition of the relation of cause and effect, she professed amazement at the moral bankruptcy of her friend's children. The truth was that these children by the neglect of their parents had been cut off from the very character-forming influences upon which her own character, and her friend's character and the character of their generation had depended for formation and growth. (Bowen 1950, 73-74)
Elder Mark E. Petersen wrote the following on the occasion of Elder Bowen’s death:
Brother Bowen literally “arose from the soil." He was farmer-born, he learned on the ranch what it meant to bear responsibility, what it meant to work. He had stability so characteristic of the soil and those who work it. There he learned to appreciate the simple but wholesome things in life, and the value of honesty, integrity, and straightforwardness. He dealt in plainness with his fellows. He was a man without guile.
Brother Bowen was a self-made man in the same sense in which Abraham Lincoln was self-made. He, too, had to struggle for his education. He, too, knew the taste of disappointment. He, too, ate ''humble pie." But, also, he arose to heights among his fellows. With high honors, he graduated from a great university as a doctor of jurisprudence and rose to the crest of the legal profession. Yet in it all he was human, humble, understanding, and true. Great as was his powerful intellect, wide as was his learning, his heart was greater.
He had a love which ran deep. It embraced his country, his Church, his friends, and most of all, his family. He constantly gave of himself for others. He did not die for them—but he lived for them. Literally he gave his life—all the years of it—for others. Is there greater love than that? (Petersen 1953, 582)
Conclusion
What kind of man was Elder Albert E. Bowen? He was a studious man. He had a serious nature. He had an uncommon intelligence, but was not a prodigy. He was a diligent worker. He was a man of sound understanding of the world in which he lived and the true needs of that world. He was a hard worker, especially when it came to his callings in the Church, serving faithfully on the general board of the Deseret Sunday School Union and as superintendent of the Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Association of the Church, not to mention the fifteen years he served as Apostle.
He was eloquent and spoke to the educated. He used his talents for the betterment of those around him. He did not give up easily, his determined streak helping him to finish law school in his mid-thirties while the single parent of two small children. He never sought callings in the Church. They sought him. He served faithfully all the days of his life.
Albert L. Zobell, Jr. 1953. "A. E. Bowen--1875-1953." The Improvement Era, September: 652, 695-696, 698.
Bennion, Milton. 1946. "Albert E. Bowen." The Instructor, June: 260.
Bowen, Albert E. 1937. One Hundred Seventh Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 118-119.
—. 1937. One Hundred Eighth Semi-Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 84-89.
—. 1938. One Hundred Eighth Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 6-10.
—. 1939. One Hundred Ninth Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 92-96.
—. 1941. One Hundred Twelfth Semi-Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 137-143.
—. 1942. One Hundred Twelfth Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 57-61.
—. 1942. One Hundred Thirteenth Semi-Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 41-42.
—. 1944. One Hundred Fourteenth Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 126-131.
—. 1946. One Hundred Sixteenth Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 176-181.
—. 1947. One Hundred Seventeenth Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 104-110.
—. 1948. One Hundred Eighteenth Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 89-94.
—. 1948. One Hundred Nineteenth Semi-Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 85-90.
—. 1950. One Hundred Twentieth Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 49-56.
—. 1950. One Hundred Twenty-first Semi-Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 69-75.
—. 1952. One Hundred Twenty-second Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 63-66.
—. 1936. "The Paradise of the Pacific Welcomes the Leaders of M. I. A." The Improvement Era, October: 603-606.
—. 1943. "Boyhood Experiences IV. When I Was a Child." The Instructor, April: 185, 197.
Evans, Richard L. 1952. "Albert E. Bowen--A Lesson from One Man's Life." The Improvement Era, November: 792-795, 845-846.
Henderson, Dr. W. W. 1937. "Albert Ernest Bowen." The Relief Society Magazine, June: 335-338.
Jenson, Andrew. 1936. Latter-Day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia. Vol. 4. Salt Lake City: The Andrew Jenson Memorial Association.
Petersen, Mark E. 1953. "In Memoriam - Elder Albert E. Bowen." The Relief Society Magazine, September: 582-583.
Quinney, Joseph. 1937. "Albert E. Bowen." The Improvement Era, May: 278-281, 311.
The Instructor. 1953. "Constant Amid the Changes." September: 266-267.
The Relief Society Magazine. 1951. "In Memoriam--Emma Lucy Gates Bowen." June: 391-392.
Biography
Albert “Bert” Ernest Bowen was born 31 October 1875 [His birthdate is sometimes mistakenly listed as in 1876. Official Church records lists it as 1875.] at Henderson Creek, Idaho, the seventh of ten children, to David Bowen and Annie Shackleton. Both of his parents were converts who immigrated to the United States: his father from Wales, immigrating as part of a handcart company, his mother from England. The family was a studious one. The parents instilling a love of books and learning into the children from an early age. His mother taught the classics, his father the works of the Church.
Bert related the following about his mother.
Mother was a great reader. She knew Dickens, Thackeray, Scott, and a good deal of Macaulay. She used to talk about them and their works. We got a chance to read some of the books she liked.
Her father died in London when she was ten years old and she had to go to work. The girls where she worked lent her books, if she would read them and tell the girls the stories. In this way she developed a wonderful memory.
All of us were taught to read and write at home. We did not go to school to learn that. Mother was the teacher. (Bowen, Boyhood Experiences IV. When I Was a Child 1943, 197)
The development of his testimony could be traced back to a single event in his childhood.
I must have been very small, because my older brothers and sisters were at school and I was not. It was before I was permitted to go to school, at least in the wintertime.
To amuse me and keep me out from under her feet, my mother gave me some little brilliants in a bottle, something like the stage jewelry we have. I was treasuring it and thinking what a good time I was going to have when my brothers and sisters came home, to show them what I had. ...
But I lost it. I hunted everywhere, but I could not find it. I thought of the story of Joseph Smith's going into the woods to pray. There were no woods near my home, except in the canyons. But we did burn wood for fuel. My father, mother, and brothers used to go in the fall to cut logs and put them in a pile near the house, and that was my idea of the woods.
So I went out to that woodpile and knelt down and asked the Lord to tell me how to find that bottle. When I came back through the gate and turned the corner of the house, there it was, standing there staring up at me, and I couldn't miss it.
I have never since had any doubt or misgivings about the Lord nor his approachability. (Albert L. Zobell 1953, 652)
He related that he was rather athletically inclined as a child. "I could swim before I was baptized. There were two things that I would rather do as a boy than eat and they were to go swimming and to play baseball." (Bowen, Boyhood Experiences IV. When I Was a Child 1943, 185)
He was grateful for the atmosphere in which he grew up. He related:
I was brought up with a lot of reverence for the Sabbath day. The meetings of the Sabbath and the little Church were held in great reverence by my folks, and yet I do not remember that they ever did much formal teaching about it. That was the atmosphere of the home. Somehow or other, we children got the lesson.
My father was a quiet man. He did not say much; he was pretty self-possessed, very industrious and frugal. He never bought anything that he could not afford to pay for. He raised ten children and gave them fair educational opportunities. He never had a mortgage on his farm or home in all his life. (Bowen, Boyhood Experiences IV. When I Was a Child 1943, 185)
He was no stranger to hard work. In addition to his regular farm chores of his boyhood, at the age of ten, he spent a winter homesteading with his eldest brother in Star Valley, Wyoming. Their diet that winter consisted of mostly venison.
At the age of 20, after a holding a family council, it was decided that Bert and one of his older brothers should go to Logan, Utah, to study at Brigham Young College. After completing his high school diploma, he first studied teaching and later law, graduating with what would be today a BA with distinction and high honors in 1902. Following graduation, he married Aletha E. Reeder. Following his graduation, he was called to serve a two-year mission to Switzerland and Germany.
Upon his return from his mission in 1904, Bert became a member of the faculty of Brigham Young College. His wife, Aletha, died in childbirth to their twin sons, Albert and Robert, in 1905. The twins were Bert’s only children, and eventually both served missions in Switzerland and Germany like their father.
In 1908 Bert went east intending to study history at Harvard and to pursue a career in education. However, during a stopover in Chicago, he met Dean Hall of the Law School of the University of Chicago, who was impressed with him and convinced him to stop and study law at Chicago. He did so, graduating with a Doctor of Jurisprudence with distinction in 1911 and was one of only three of his class selected for membership in the legal honorary fraternity, The Order of the Coif.
The attentive reader will realize that his achievements, while impressive, were not perhaps as timely as some would have expected. Elder Richard L. Evans said this about the timing of Albert E. Bowen’s life:
His was a late start—which he overcame magnificiently [sic] with a steady course: He was twenty years of age before he began his high school work; twenty-seven before he received his first college degree; married before he went on his mission; twenty-nine when he returned; a widower at thirty with two infant sons; thirty-three before he started the study of law; thirty-six before he received a degree in jurisprudence with highest honors at the University of Chicago. And with that late start, years behind what most young men would these days consider essential—with all this, he rose to unusual eminence, professionally and personally. (Albert L. Zobell 1953, 652)
Following his graduation, he began to practice law in Logan, Utah, specializing in irrigation law. He served as county attorney in Cache County for two terms and was nominated in 1916 for the State Supreme Court. At this time, Bert served as the superintendent of the Cache Stake Sunday School Board.
In 1916, Bert remarried, this time Emma Lucy Gates, one of the most famous soloists of the time and granddaughter of President Brigham Young. He moved to Salt Lake City in 1920 and began practicing law there together with J. Reuben Clark, Jr. and Preston D. Richards in the firm of Clark, Richards, and Bowen. He was a very hard-working lawyer and was known to work until late into the night while still being one of the first at the office the following morning.
It was said of him as a lawyer:
In court and out he has been tenacious for truth and deliberate in judgment and stubborn in his insistent search for facts. No man ever rushed A. E. Bowen into a hasty decision or into speaking a loose sentence or a rash word. His opponents may have been exasperated by his deliberateness at times, but they always respected his appraisal of actual evidence and his ethics and honor and honesty, for when he has said that something was so, it has been because he has long considered it and believed it to be so. These and other qualities won for him an enviable eminence as a trial lawyer as well as a valued counselor in corporate and personal problems. (Evans 1952, 794)
In 1922, he was called as a member of the General Board of the Deseret Sunday School Union. In this capacity, he served as chairman of the missionary training committee. He was released from this calling January of 1935 to succeed George Albert Smith as General Superintendent of the Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Association (YMMIA). This was the first time that anyone who was not a general authority served as head of an auxiliary organization.
He traveled to Hawaii the summer of 1936 as part of his calling as General Superintendent of the YMMIA. This was the first time that the head of an auxiliary visited a regularly scheduled conference of a stake outside the continental United States. His wife, Lucy Gates Bowen, having spent five years of her childhood in Hawaii, delighted in the opportunity to sing in Hawaiian, accompanied by the ukulele.
In the April 1937 general conference, Albert E. Bowen was suddenly and surprisingly sustained as a member of the Council of the Twelve Apostles.
Here was his response to his call:
I hope none of you was more shocked at the proceedings of this day so far as they concern myself than was I. I have never regarded myself as a person of particular consequence, and why I should have been asked to assume this responsible position, I do not know.
In my lifetime I have dreamed many dreams, I have nursed many ambitions, but this was never one of them. I have never coveted, never sought, and never desired any preferment in the Church. I have been happy all the days of my life to work in it, and would have been content to remain in places where I would not be forced to occupy public position. But since the call has come, I do what I have always been taught to do, namely, respond, and pledge you that I will give it all my strength. (Bowen 1937, 118)
As part of his duties as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, he served as an advisor to the Church Welfare Program, for which he also wrote a course of study. This was quite significant work during World War II and the aftermath of war, where so many people were in need of the basic necessities of life.
At the beginning of World War II, he, along with Elders Harold B. Lee and Hugh B. Brown, visited the military installations and camps all over the country to get the Church’s servicemen’s program underway.
Elder Bowen also served as a member of the Church expenditures committee and Church auditing committee, giving invaluable legal advice in all financial matters.
Around this time, Elder Bowen gave an eloquent series of radio programs which were later compiled and printed in book form entitled Constancy Amid Change.
Then, in April of 1951, his wife, Emma Lucy Gates Bowen, died unexpectedly. Just over a year later, Elder Bowen fell ill of a condition that would eventually be the cause of his death.
Elder Albert E. Bowen died 15 July 1953 of arteriosclerosis after suffering from the effects for more than a year.
Quotes
Elder Albert E. Bowen’s speaking style was one of extreme eloquence. His vocabulary was vast and he used very precise and beautiful language. It was so eloquent, in fact, that it was sometimes difficult for the average member to understand. He spoke to the educated first and then repeated his sentiment in easier language typically, or gave an example that amply illustrated his topic, allowing everyone to understand at least what it was he wanted to convey. His eloquence was such that he became one who was often quoted after his death.
He rarely spoke of personal experiences, choosing to focus his talks on pure doctrine. Since he spoke about his own life so rarely, his own preference is taken into account here, and emphasis is placed on his doctrinal words.
The following is a brief example of his extensive vocabulary and the kind of eloquence he exhibited frequently.
We see abundant examples of this all about us today, individuals and whole nations, too, beguiled by the seductive promises of plenty without the trouble and anxiety of care for their own concern, surrendering themselves to the fatuous allurements of deceptive demagogues or to the blighting tyrannies of ruthless despots. (Bowen 1948, 91)
He spoke with very little humor, mostly focusing on the serious side of the gospel. His favorite topic was clearly the need for and role of religion in the world at the time he lived. He felt that the Christian world had turned away from religion and that was the cause of all its problems and that conversion would be its cure. Almost every talk he ever gave came back to this same topic in some way.
His final testimony was one of faith that the Church can help heal the world. He spoke about the phenomenon of what happens when the people determine what is right instead of appealing to God. This sermon was very well-remembered and while the following quote is quite long, it has been included here in its entirety because it has been quoted by several general authorities through the years.
So long as the Church [speaking of churches in general in the world] pretends or assumes to preach absolute values, but actually preaches relative and secondary values, it will merely hasten the process of disintegration. We are asked to turn to the church for enlightenment, but when we do so we find that the voice of the church is not inspired. The voice of the church today, we find, is the echo of our own voices, and the result of this experience is disillusionment.
This is the profound and absolute spiritual disillusionment arising from the fact that when we consult the church we only hear what we ourselves have said. The effect of this experience upon the present generation has been profound. It is the effect of a vicious spiral like the economists talk about that leads into depressions, but in this spiral there is at stake not merely prosperity, but civilization.
There is only one way out of that spiral. The way out is the sound of a voice. Not our voice, but a voice coming from something not ourselves, in the existence of which we cannot disbelieve. It is the earthly task of the pastors to hear this voice, to cause us to hear it, and to tell us what it says. If they cannot hear it, or if they fail to tell us, we as laymen are entirely lost. Without it we are no more capable of saving the world than we were of creating it in the first place.
That is a penetrating analysis of the cause for the ills of the world. To gain favor, to enhance our popularity, to avoid giving offense, we have adopted the theories of men and tried to integrate them with the teachings of the Son of God, and they will not mix. …
In my view there is only one safety; there is only one cure; and that is to take the pure and unadulterated word of God and set that up as our standard of measurement, and measure every creed and doctrine and dogma by that yardstick. That which will not square with the declarations of Almighty God we can lay aside as unsuited for the need of man, and orient ourselves again in that declaration of Peter, re-echoed by Paul, by all the disciples of the Christ, so long as his teachings remained undefiled and uncorrupted, and set that up as the guide to our course of life.
Then we shall not have these appeals, we shall not need these appeals to men to modify their governments because their governments will be founded in righteousness, and righteousness will prevail. (Bowen 1952, 66)
He had a profound understanding of the significance of the First Vision. This quote also shows his tendency to see the world in absolutes. Black and white with no middle ground.
We say that the God of heaven came down in answer to the prayer of a boy and that He brought with Him a personage whom He introduced as His son, and He commanded that praying boy to hear His Son. And out of the teachings which were then given, and followed up by subsequent instructions, this Church was established. Now, that admits of no explanation, of no modification. Either those things happened or they did not happen. There is no middle ground; and if they did not happen then we have nothing, because our whole structure is foundationed [sic] upon that assumed fact. We accept it as a fact, and we may not temporize with it, try to explain it away, modify it, or liberalize about it. It stands as the basic thing upon which our whole faith is founded. And our whole system of belief exacts of us that we accept those basic truths, without modification or change. (Bowen 1942, 42)
Elder Bowen understood that every principle was founded upon obedience to a corresponding principle. He seemed to take the concept very seriously and applied it in his own life.
Mastery of natural forces can be achieved only by understanding and observing the laws by which they are governed. It is fair to conclude that spiritual and mental growth can be attained only by obedience to the laws on which they are predicated. If through diligence, observance of correct principles, discipline of the mind and of the spirit, a man attains to a fine development of personality in this life, surely it is not unreasonable to suppose that that will be his imperishable possession and glory in the life he enters upon after death. On the contrary, if through lethargy or sin his self-realization in this life is dwarfed, he shall be handicapped to that extent as he enters upon the new world. (Bowen 1937, 86)
He had a strong belief in the need for hard work applied in every one’s life.
We all have had the disappointing experience of seeing young men of apparently scintillating brilliance fail utterly of achieving the distinction which their natural endowment gave promise of, just as we have been happily surprised at the success gained by some of slower mentality. The difference lies in their differing degrees of industry and endurance. The tenacious, plodding mind has often outrun the quick and apparently more alert one simply because the possessor of the former has been willing to submit himself to the rigid discipline of weary hours of toil which the latter would not endure. Almost we might, it seems to me, lay it down as a working rule that achievement is in proportion to the amount of intelligent effort one is willing to put into an enterprise. (Bowen 1948, 90)
As a lawyer by trade, Elder Bowen was very interested in the topic of justice. The late 1930’s was witnessing the beginning of World War II for much of the world, and Elder Bowen was concerned with the loss of justice in other parts of the world.
Before we import despotic principles into our own land, which are so raucously clamoring for admission, we would better count the costs. Three weeks ago I read one morning the sickening, revolting story of an old world trial where the mockery of it was rendered the more cruel by the observance of outward legal form but devoid of every semblance of justice as known to free men. The sole offense of the accused was political disagreement with the will of the dictator. Then I walked into a United States Court where a Grand Jury was being impanelled. It comprised 16 men of the district of varied stations in life. They were instructed that under the Constitution no one could be called to answer for an offense against the government except upon presentment by a Grand Jury; and that they alone, without fear or favor, without regard to the station of the accused, be it high or low, without extraneous influence of any sort, but solely upon the evidence, must decide whether indictments should be returned.
Thank God for Liberty! (Bowen 1938, 10)
Coming from a legal standpoint, Elder Bowen felt that the law was essential to the world. However, he also felt that if one kept all the commandments of God, there would be no breaking of the laws of the land. He thought that if the Ten Commandments were observed more in his day, then there would be no violations of the law at all.
"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor" (Exodus 20:16) is particularly to be commended to our attention in these electioneering times. If all the falsity and calculated deception were squeezed out of many of the speeches we listen to, they could be reduced to about one minute's duration instead of thirty.
"Thou shalt not covet... any thing that is thy neighbour's." (Exodus 20:17.) The observance of this law would rid the world of most of its strife. Out of a fairly long experience in dealing with the disputations of men, and the causes, I am persuaded that most of them arise out of a covetous desire to obtain some material thing or to reap some advantage to which the contender is not entitled. If everybody wanted to do what he knew was right—deal justly, man to man, and would be content to have what he justly could claim—there wouldn't be much litigation or strife. If applied to the conduct of nations, there would be no war. War results when one nation covets what another nation has or seeks dominion over it. The victim does not want to give up either its possession or its independence. The designing one says, "I am bigger than you," or "I have a bigger or better equipped army so I shall take what I want by force." The other resists, and we have war. (Bowen 1948, 86)
His inquiring mind never took what he read on faith, and he encouraged the people to consider what it is that they read so they have a better idea of what was correct and what was not.
Let's get over the idea of thinking that everything must be true because it is written in a book. It derives no sanctity from being reduced to print. It has no higher validity than the honesty of thought behind it. (Bowen 1946, 181)
Freedom was also uppermost in his mind at the time the world was at war.
Our institutions which protect us in our freedom of thought and of worship were the product of a thousand years of struggle against tyranny. But they have no guarantee of immortality except such guarantee as inheres in the will and the fitness of our people to be free.
Freedom is not bestowed; it is achieved. It is not a gift, but a conquest. It does not abide; it must be preserved. (Bowen 1938, 9)
Despite his own serious nature and the sobering activities of the times, Elder Bowen had an eternal perspective that did not allow him to despair.
Cloudy as the skies may be, I am not one of those who despair for I believe in the triumph of right. In its consummation a leading role must be played by the Church, one of whose prime functions it is to transmute religious truths into living practices. The teachings of those truths and habits of practice becomes then the highest and most solemn duty of every person in the Church, and above all, of all those to whom the responsibility of leadership, in whatever capacity, has come, for therein lies not only the hope for eternity, but the hope of the world for stability and safety, here and now. (Bowen 1939, 96)
As a wartime apostle, Elder Bowen spoke directly about the horrors, consequences and causes of World War II.
Our meeting here this morning seems hopelessly discordant in its purpose with current, all-enveloping happenings. We gather to worship the God of love in the name of His Son, the Prince of Peace. And even as we speak, the whole world is ablaze with the devouring flames of war. At this instant, in far-away places men are locked in a death grapple.
Both in its scope and portent the present conflict dwarfs what we heretofore, out of tribute to its magnitude, have styled the World War, as that eclipsed the wars which had gone before. Scarcely is there a land some of whose citizens have not forfeited their lives. In all the earth, as it was in Ramah, there is heard the voice of lamentation: "Rachel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not." (Bowen 1942, 57)
Perhaps no day now goes by that some home is not made desolate by receipt of a message from the war or navy department beginning: "We regret to inform you...." Then a few phrases about courage, devotion to duty, dying gloriously, and some mother knows the dull heavy thud of a heartbreak signalling blasted hopes for her boy that will not come home again. No one may know what reveries troop through her mind as she sits alone, disconsolate...The boy that lay nestled under her heart, the boy she nourished from her own body during his helpless infancy, the boy for whose future she had dreamed dreams into which were woven the praises of men's tongues as they extolled his achievements and whose children should one day sit upon her knee as she told them the story of his rise to fame.... Now all seems ended, the promise of life cut off, made fruitless, all sacrifices and strivings vain. Her boy is dead, victim of blundering human stupidity in a recreant, wilfully-disobedient world. …
As such mother sits alone with her anguish and reviews the events of the life of her martyred son there may unfold before her vision the scroll upon which are written the experiences of Mary, the mother of the Son of God, and from the final triumph of His life she may draw the sustaining power of hope and faith; for the resurrection is as universal as the race. (Bowen 1944, 126, 128-129)
Commonly we attribute our ills to the war. That is an explanation so ready at hand. War is ugly anyway, and the source of so much evil that it is easy to lump onto it the sole responsibility for all our afflictions. But it is clear that the war is not the root cause of our disorders. It is only a symptom, evidence of a basic ailment which produced it. If the war had been the cause, then the cause would have been removed when the fighting stopped, and we should have had only to convalesce from the sickness. That is not what happened. We seem further from peace now than when the battle was raging. The pressure of the conflict had some cohesive, unifying power which is now wanting. Many small nations seem merely to have changed masters, and their lot is not improved. They seem to have lost all immediate prospect for controlling their own destinies. War is rightly recognized as an evil scourge, and there is a feverish desire to prevent its recurrence. But war arises out of antecedent causes, and the only way to prevent it is to remove those causes. (Bowen 1947, 107-108)
Seeing the attempts of other nations to establish a communist or socialist state, Elder Bowen saw their chances of success very pragmatically.
Many men in this world have worked out patterns for what they conceived to be the ideal State, but when they had finished they found they had no people fitted to live in such state. Jesus saw with unerring clearness that society can be nothing better than a reflection of the men and women who comprise it. The ideal state can come only when created and peopled by men and women who embody its ideals in their lives. His first business, therefore, was with individuals, to teach them how to live, individually and in relation to their fellowmen.
Advancement in that purpose would assure a parallel betterment of the collective body.
The prescription for the kind of living He enjoined involves the control of self within, self-discipline, the supremacy of individual virtues over baser instincts, self-government which raises the individual to a plane where his conduct is above the compulsions of an overhanging law. This is only to say that there is involved the bringing of the finer spiritual qualities of human nature into mastery over its more carnal animal instincts. The fruition comes with a complete spiritual supremacy. (Bowen 1941, 138)
In retrospect, the 1950’s seems today like a time of peace, people doing what they felt was right, putting the horrors of war behind them. However, Elder Bowen saw something else. He saw the deterioration of true Christianity.
But something ominous is happening now. There are disquieting signs that all over Christendom the underpinnings of the Christian faith are being knocked down. The crumbling of the Christian pattern is of grave portent. Ancient supports may be torn away, but what shall buttress us then? It begins to look as though the world is slipping back to the position it held when the Lord commissioned his disciples to carry his message to all the nations. The task again seems to be to get men to believe in him—to get him accepted. There is something highly suggestive about the fact that the upheavals which are threatening the destruction of the civilized world follow so closely on the heels of open denial by professed Christians of belief in Christ as the Son of God and of the divinity of his teachings. (Bowen 1950, 53)
Although story-telling was rare in Elder Bowen’s discourses, he did tell the following story that he had read about in a magazine in order to illustrate his perception of the deterioration of Christianity.
A few years ago I recited from this pulpit the story of a disturbed woman's perplexities. She had just visited a dear friend of her college days who by then had a well-grown daughter and a son. She was both embarrassed and shocked by the behavior of these children. The boy came and went as he pleased, and no questions asked or answered. The mother's admonitions and protests against the indelicate indiscretions of the daughter in her behavior with young men were met with jeers at the mother's prudery and lack of sophistication. The last night of her visit, she was awakened by a disturbance in the house. The girl had come home from a late party thoroughly intoxicated and was leading her escort in like condition to her room when they were intercepted by the aroused parents. A noisy scene ensued before the boy was finally sent off home and the girl put to bed. So the embarrassed visitor went home to clear her head and do some thinking. She remembered the home environment in which she was reared.
The religious note was strong in that home. The Bible was read and believed in. Daily the family on their knees talked to God who was revered and was a reality. They were church-going people and set apart one day a week as a holy day on which to do reverence to the Author of life. They sang majestic hymns which carried messages to their expanding souls. They heard the simple, direct words of the gospels whose grandeur somehow carried over into their hearts and furnished their ideals for living. These ideals, through practice, were silently woven into the pattern of their lives, and they came out with established characters and stable guides to conduct which made them secure against the waves of laxity which washed about them with the passage of time. Her home and family experience were typical of those of the youth of her time, including the friend she had just visited. That friend, along with herself, in the days of their girlhood association had spontaneously as a matter of habit and acceptance observed the conventions and proprieties.
She explained that she and her friend and their associates had in their college years given up the simple faith of their youth, had ceased to give credence to the beliefs which had sustained them, had given up their Bible reading and their church-going and their Sabbath observance and their prayers. They could live the good life without these "artificial props." They didn't need the church. They said they had their own religion, but really it had shriveled up to a mere code of ethics now cut loose from its roots and no longer nourished from the parent stem. Then with an incredible lack of recognition of the relation of cause and effect, she professed amazement at the moral bankruptcy of her friend's children. The truth was that these children by the neglect of their parents had been cut off from the very character-forming influences upon which her own character, and her friend's character and the character of their generation had depended for formation and growth. (Bowen 1950, 73-74)
Elder Mark E. Petersen wrote the following on the occasion of Elder Bowen’s death:
Brother Bowen literally “arose from the soil." He was farmer-born, he learned on the ranch what it meant to bear responsibility, what it meant to work. He had stability so characteristic of the soil and those who work it. There he learned to appreciate the simple but wholesome things in life, and the value of honesty, integrity, and straightforwardness. He dealt in plainness with his fellows. He was a man without guile.
Brother Bowen was a self-made man in the same sense in which Abraham Lincoln was self-made. He, too, had to struggle for his education. He, too, knew the taste of disappointment. He, too, ate ''humble pie." But, also, he arose to heights among his fellows. With high honors, he graduated from a great university as a doctor of jurisprudence and rose to the crest of the legal profession. Yet in it all he was human, humble, understanding, and true. Great as was his powerful intellect, wide as was his learning, his heart was greater.
He had a love which ran deep. It embraced his country, his Church, his friends, and most of all, his family. He constantly gave of himself for others. He did not die for them—but he lived for them. Literally he gave his life—all the years of it—for others. Is there greater love than that? (Petersen 1953, 582)
Conclusion
What kind of man was Elder Albert E. Bowen? He was a studious man. He had a serious nature. He had an uncommon intelligence, but was not a prodigy. He was a diligent worker. He was a man of sound understanding of the world in which he lived and the true needs of that world. He was a hard worker, especially when it came to his callings in the Church, serving faithfully on the general board of the Deseret Sunday School Union and as superintendent of the Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Association of the Church, not to mention the fifteen years he served as Apostle.
He was eloquent and spoke to the educated. He used his talents for the betterment of those around him. He did not give up easily, his determined streak helping him to finish law school in his mid-thirties while the single parent of two small children. He never sought callings in the Church. They sought him. He served faithfully all the days of his life.
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—. 1937. One Hundred Eighth Semi-Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 84-89.
—. 1938. One Hundred Eighth Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 6-10.
—. 1939. One Hundred Ninth Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 92-96.
—. 1941. One Hundred Twelfth Semi-Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 137-143.
—. 1942. One Hundred Twelfth Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 57-61.
—. 1942. One Hundred Thirteenth Semi-Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 41-42.
—. 1944. One Hundred Fourteenth Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 126-131.
—. 1946. One Hundred Sixteenth Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 176-181.
—. 1947. One Hundred Seventeenth Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 104-110.
—. 1948. One Hundred Eighteenth Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 89-94.
—. 1948. One Hundred Nineteenth Semi-Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 85-90.
—. 1950. One Hundred Twentieth Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 49-56.
—. 1950. One Hundred Twenty-first Semi-Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 69-75.
—. 1952. One Hundred Twenty-second Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 63-66.
—. 1936. "The Paradise of the Pacific Welcomes the Leaders of M. I. A." The Improvement Era, October: 603-606.
—. 1943. "Boyhood Experiences IV. When I Was a Child." The Instructor, April: 185, 197.
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