Delpha Bowman
Delpha Emma Matilda (Appel) Bowman, 94, of Garber, died Saturday, November 4th at the Edgewood Convalescent Home. She was born on April 27, 1923, in Clayton County to Frieda Appel. Frieda married Fritz Klinkenberg on January 30, 1924, and raised Delpha on a farm near Saint Olaf, Iowa.
Delpha graduated from Elkader High School and attended Upper Iowa University in Fayette where she studied normal training to become a schoolteacher. After graduation, she began teaching at Mecklenburg school in rural St. Olaf. During World War II she dispensed ration stamps to the rural people of the area as most goods were rationed during the war.
Delpha met Mark Bowman of Garber, Iowa, and the two were married June 1, 1950, at Saint John’s Lutheran Church in Farmersburg. The two made their home on the Bowman Family farm in rural Garber. Delpha continued to teach school while her husband farmed. Eventually farming duties took more of her time and she became a full-time farmwife after the birth of her two sons.
Delpha became an accomplished seamstress making most of the clothes for her family while also raising most of the food for her family. Delpha raised both laying hens and butcher chickens while milking cows both night and morning. She tended a large garden of strawberries in June, raspberries later in the summer, and apples in the fall while raising and canning and freezing all the rewards of her vegetable garden, donating the excess and never letting anything go to waste.
Delpha was involved in church at St. John’s of Garber, teaching Sunday school while her sons were in school was involved in the Women’s Guild at St. John’s for many years more. Delpha was active in Womens Farm Bureau in Clayton County and also help found a rural social club in Garber called Happy Homemakers. Delpha had a passion for hard work, charity, and volunteering her time and talents unselfishly wherever they were needed. She spent the last six years in the loving care of the Edgewood Convalescent Home.
She is survived by two sons, Dennis, of Denver, Iowa, and Darrell (Peg), of Redfield, Iowa; a granddaughter, Julia Bowman of Denver, Iowa; step-grandchildren Amber Baker of Des Moines, Iowa and Trevor Baker or Owensboro, Kentucky. She was preceded in death by her husband, Mark, parents, Frieda and Fritz Klinkenberg, sister, Pauline (Les) Dubler, of Dubuque.
There was a visitation from 4 to 7 p.m. Monday, November 6, 2017, at the funeral home and one hour before services at the church on Tuesday. Funeral service was Tuesday, November 7, 2017, at St. John Congregational Church in Garber. Pastor Linda Hauschild officiated. Interment was at Mt. Harmony Cemetery, rural Garber, IA.
Leonard-Grau Funeral Home & Cremation Service is assisting the family. Online condolences can be left with www.graufuneralhomes.com
