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Loma · Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast

• 0:11
  From the On Air Across America NEWSROOM, I'm Alex Ross and this
• 0:15
  is your Morning News update. Americans are paying a record
• 0:18
  nominal price for gasoline this Labor Day.
• 0:21
  AAA lists the national average at approximately $4.15 per
• 0:25
  gallon. The organization cites crude oil
• 0:28
  prices near $90.00 a barrel and continued volatility around the
• 0:32
  Strait of Hormuz among the contributing factors.
• 0:34
  The Trump administration has returned to the Supreme Court in
• 0:37
  an effort to implement new Postal Service requirements for
• 0:40
  men bail ballots. A federal judge has blocked
• 0:42
  enforcement while litigation continues and several states
• 0:45
  have begun distributing ballots. 5 people are dead after an
• 0:48
  Amazon cargo jet overran A runway at Miami International
• 0:52
  Airport Sunday and struck vehicles on a service Rd.
• 0:55
  Federal investigators have not determined the cause.
• 0:57
  North Korea has commissioned its 2nd 5000 ton destroyer as the
• 1:01
  United States, South Korea and Japan begin A5 day military
• 1:05
  exercise in baseball. Brian Wu allowed one hit over 8
• 1:09
  scoreless innings as the Mayor Manners defeated the Athletics 2
• 1:12
  to nothing for the On Air Across America network.
• 1:14
  I'm Alex Ross. The world is a complicated
• 1:37
  place. Fortunately, Dave Bowman has
• 1:40
  opinions, some informed, some inconvenient, and a few that may
• 1:45
  require supporting documentation, history,
• 1:48
  politics, and the absurdity of modern life.
• 1:51
  This is the Dave Bowman Show. Over the weekend I discovered
• 2:00
  that I have a great aunt who literally nobody in our family
• 2:04
  knew about. Her name was Loma M Bowman and
• 2:08
  she was born on September 15th, 1914 in Butler, MO.
• 2:14
  My great grandparents were an unusual couple.
• 2:17
  Great Granddad, for whom I am named, was much older than his
• 2:20
  wife Rosa. As we have unraveled the story,
• 2:23
  it has begun to look as though an affair started sometime
• 2:26
  around 1914 and continued until after the birth of my
• 2:30
  grandfather a few years later. My grandfather never had much
• 2:34
  good to say about Great Granddad, but my father adored
• 2:37
  him. He would tell me about him
• 2:39
  sitting on the porch in Oklahoma City, quietly whittling a piece
• 2:43
  of wood and always seeming to have a nickel for Dad to go down
• 2:46
  to the corner store and get a soda pop.
• 2:49
  Dad always said that he was kind, quiet, and cared deeply
• 2:52
  about his children and grandchildren.
• 2:55
  Obviously, he passed long before I was born, but his impact on my
• 2:59
  dad's life was always noticeable.
• 3:02
  When it came time to name me, he and my mother made a deal.
• 3:05
  All five of their children, starting with me, carry our
• 3:08
  great grandfather's name as a middle name.
• 3:12
  His life could not have been an easy 1.
• 3:14
  He was a simple farmer who lived his entire life in the country
• 3:18
  between Kansas City and Oklahoma City, which were not the
• 3:21
  metropolitan centers they are today.
• 3:23
  Naragogue. Most of his life was spent
• 3:25
  around Fort Scott, KS where he is buried today alongside his
• 3:29
  father and near his own grandfather.
• 3:32
  But sometime in late 1914, he and my great grandmother Rosa
• 3:37
  found each other. We do not know the story.
• 3:40
  Was he cheating? Was she too young and did it get
• 3:43
  her into trouble with her own family, the Tennessee
• 3:46
  Satterleys? We strongly suspect that some
• 3:49
  form of mental illness affected her life, but we have no
• 3:52
  definitive proof. On September 15th, 1914, a
• 3:57
  daughter was born. Two days later, the little girl
• 4:02
  passed away. She was laid to rest in an
• 4:05
  unmarked and unnoticed Potter's field in Oak Hill Cemetery on
• 4:08
  the east side of Butler, MO. Just a year later, my own
• 4:13
  grandfather would be born in Joplin, MO.
• 4:16
  The line that would eventually lead to me stretching back to
• 4:19
  colonial Pennsylvania would continue.
• 4:23
  And somewhere beneath the cold Missouri ground lies a small
• 4:26
  child who never had a chance at life.
• 4:30
  She was my great aunt.