Frederick Bowen was born 3 October 1891 in Kodiak, Alaska to Captain Henry Richard Bowen and his wife Barbara Naumoff
The family moved to Wood Island in 1893. Fred was only about four years old when his father Captain Henry R. Bowen drowned at sea near Kodiak on the boat the Seventy Six in December of 1895.
When Mount Katmai erupted in 1912, many of the people of Wood Island and Kodiak, including the Bowen family, moved to Seldovia.
In 1920 Fred married Anna McCrae. She was born in Sunrise, Alaska with a crippled back and Fred’s parents Bill Rohde and Barbara took care of her as a child. She had tuberculosis and died 29 April 1933 in Seward, Alaska. After her death, Fred was left with a large family. He sent the younger ones to the Seward orphanage and he raised the older boys.
Children of Frederick and Anna are: • Rufas Phillip, born 16 September 1920, Seldovia; died 12 October 1993. • Isam C., born 1922, Seldovia. • Robert L. “Bulla”, born 1925, Seldovia; died 31 August 1961, Seldovia. • Norman Henry (Barney), born 3 July 1926, Seldovia. • Barbara Marie, born 8 April 1929, Seldovia; died 11 December 2018, Vancouver, Washington. • Clarence, born 13 April 1931, Seldovia; died 2001. • Frederick F. (Freddie), born 28 January 1933, Seldovia; died 7 April 2014, Apopka, Florida.
Fred had a small boat for fishing and he also worked at the Pearl Island Fox Farm: —Seldovia, about 1931 Fred Bowen, who has been employed for some months on Clyde Coombs’ Pearl Island fox farm, came to town last Wednesday and visited with his family for a couple of days. When he went back to the island Friday morning, he took along two of his young sons, Isam and Robert, their chief jobs to be to keep the “old-man” from getting lonesome. The blue fox run wild, Mr. Bowen explained, but there are enough signs to assure that the season will be a profitable one.