Freda L. Bowen

Freda Bowen, age 84, of Garnett, Kansas died on December 22, 2008 at Garnett, Kansas. Freda Lou Bowen was born on a farm near Blue Mound, Kansas on August 13, 1924, to Fred C. Mead and Bernice Murrow Mead. She went to Country School until she graduated from grade school. Then her parents moved to Selma, Kansas, where she attended Kincaid High School, and her parents ran a grocery store. In 1940 they moved to LeRoy, Kansas, where she graduated from high school in 1941. Her mother worked in a grocery store and helped the doctor deliver babies at home. Freda worked in a caf in LeRoy after school and on weekends where she was paid 10 cents per hour. When she graduated from high school and couldn't afford to go to college, she moved to Los Angeles, California, where she lived with her Aunt Ione and Uncle Albert Weickert. There she worked for a restaurant and later Kress, where she met Peter R. Bowen. They were married Sunday, February 14, 1943 at Precious Blood Church in Los Angeles. Freda worked in an airplane plant until she moved back to Garnett to live with her mother and younger sister Shelda Sapp. They lived on Highway 59 until her husband came home from the Navy; this is the house where their five children were born, Robert Michael Bowen, Patti R. Bowen, Thomas C. Bowen, Catherine S. Brooks, Cynthia L. Reynolds. Freda worked for Garnett Publishing Company until she went to work for her husband at Pete's Body Shop. After she retired, she went to work for U.S.D. 365 as a lunch room aid and night janitor. She was preceded in death by both parents, Bernice Bayless and Fred C. Mead; her husband, Pete Bowen in 1979; one son, Thomas Bowen in 2008; two grandchildren, Stephanie Leigh Beckwith in 1999 and Nick Bowen 2003. Freda is survived by one son, Robert Michael Bowen of Kansas City, Missouri; three daughters, Patti Bowen of Baldwin City, Kansas; Cathy Brooks, Baldwin City, Kansas; and Cindy Reynolds of Colorado Springs, Colorado; one sister, Shelda Sapp of Garnett, Kansas; seven grandchildren; and seven great grandchildren.