The Lineage of Otis R. Bowen: A Hoosier Governor’s Fulton County Roots

William Du Bois Jr.

Otis Ray Bowen was bom at the home of his grandparents, John Pierce and Rebecca Jane (Hartman) Bowen, in Richland Township, Fulton County, on 26 . His parents, Fulton County natives Vemie Bowen (1898-1983) and Pearl Irene Wright (1899-1987), were living with Vemie’s parents because they could not yet afford a home on his meager salary as a teacher. Otis was the second of five children, his siblings being Esther, Evelyn, Richard (now de­ ceased), and Sarah Jane. The future physician, legislator, governor, and cabinet member grew up in rural Fulton County around small towns like Kewanna and Fulton as his father struggled to support the family by teaching and coaching while earning a teaching degree from Manchester College. After Vemie earned his de­ gree in 1934 the family moved to Francesville, Pulaski County. In 1936, with Otis in college, the Bowen family moved to Lake County, where Vernie taught in Crown Point and East Chicago. But the family’s roots run deep in Fulton Dr. Bowen relaxes at the County, and Vernie came home to University School of Medicine, purchase and operate a Leiters Ford where he was a professor of family hardware store in his retirement medicine following his two terms years. Responding to the need of as governor and before joining President Reagan’s cabinet. the Aubbeenaubbee Township schools, however, he taught an­ other seven years there. All told, his forty-three years as a teacher included twenty-six in Fulton County. Otis Bowen graduated from high school in Francesville in 1935 and went off to at Bloomington to pursue his dream of becoming a doc­ tor. He achieved that goal in 1942 and conducted his internship the next year at Epworth (now Memorial) Hospital in South Bend. While on active duty in the U.S. Army Medical Corps during World War II, Dr. Bowen participated in the invasion of Okinawa. Dr. Bowen practiced medicine for a quarter century in Bremen, Marshall County. He was a member of the Indiana House of Representatives for fourteen years (1956-1958 and 1960-1972) and was the House speaker from 1967 to 1972.