GROVER CHESTER BOWMAN – To be responsible for the proper and up-to-date management of modern schools, to endow them with an atmosphere which pervades both the teaching staff and the students, requires men of superior endowments who, as students have been in contact with high-class educational establishments of different types. In this respect Mr. Grover Chester Bowman, superintendent of schools of North Adams, has been singularly fortunate for having as a student, at a period of life when the mind is in a state for high receptivity and plasticity, come under the influence of the academic atmosphere of two of the most famous and ancient institutions of higher learning in America.
Mr. Bowman is a native of Covington, Indiana, where he was born on December 15, 1884, a son of Hershel Volney Bowman, a general agent of the Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad, and Cora Alice (Winders) Bowman. Mr. Bowman received his preliminary education in the public school of his native town and then became a pupil of the Tuscola, Illinois, High School, from which he graduated in the year 1902. Having completed his elementary studies, he became a student of Williams College, where, in 1906, he took the arts degree of B. A. and then matriculated as a graduate student, with advanced standing, of Yale University, graduating from there in 1912 with the degree of Master of Arts. After passing some time in the teaching profession and attaining a reputation as a pedagogue of force and originality with a keen love for his work, Mr. Bowman was nominated superintendent of schools in Connecticut and Massachusetts. He also holds the position of lecturer on educational subjects at Middlebury College and State Summer Normals, in Connecticut. In politics Mr. Bowman is a member of the Democratic party, and in religion is an attendant of the Congregational Church. He is a member of the Connecticut State Guards, and his fraternal and other associations include membership in the local lodge of the Free and Accepted Masons, the local lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Kiwanis Club and the Berkshire Club in North Adams.
On November 27, 1907, Mr. Bowman married, at North Adams, Matilda Bullett, a daughter of John L. and Hannah Bullett, and with her has three daughters:
- Mary Elizabeth, born in 1909.
- Margaret Louise, born in 1905.
- Marion Eileen, born in 1922.