Dr. A. B. Bowen

BOWEN

Posted By: Ken Wright (email)
Date: 11/21/2008 at 09:59:23

Jackson Sentinel
September 19, 1919

Dr. A. B. Bowen is Formally Honored on His 50th Anniversary in Profession
Over 50 Guests Gather to Pay Tribute to Prominent Physician, Surgeon, Friend and Citizen. Splendid Program Rendered.

A half century of professional activity in a community is a record which stands out as a most unusual insignia of service. Few men live to pass such a milestone and few there be who with the unfurled colors of signal success pass under the coveted wire, as did our esteemed townsman, Dr. A. B. Bowen, Wednesday, September 17th.

That the date was made memorable was certainly fitting; that the spot in the doctor’s career should be made to gleam, was only in keeping with the sense of respect and appreciation of a city and countryside. To serve a calling or a profession for fifty years is an enviable record; to serve a commonwealth as a friend and good citizen for two-score and ten years is a credit to any man, but to serve as both friend and benefactor is the beautiful linking of citizenship and duty.

Dr. Bowen has risen from the ranks and won his spurs, the bygone years of hardships when crude inconvenience was coupled with his activities among us, only served to urge him onward and upward, sticking to the helm while others loosened hold and drifted to less storm beaten ports. Success has climaxed these persistent efforts, and a keen satisfaction illumines the doctor’s pathway which has been cleared of obstacles by untiring energy and unswerving application to duty. As a physician and surgeon, his reputation had long since been established and we could not add or detract any prominence which he has attained by song or eulogy. As a citizen we can only emphasize the truths universally known by stating that the city, the county and the state, the several organizations to which Dr. Bowen is an honored member; the fraternities, the professional associations in which his counsel is ever sought, have with them still a man of influence and worth, it must certainly be a source of extreme pleasure to the Doctor that with one accord, all these various factions voice their congratulations and extend their heartiest wishes as he looks backward and sees in the clearness of the September skyline that rugged stone on which is deeply chiseled “Fifty Years of honorable, active service.”

About fifty guests were present at the Bowen home on Wednesday evening where a Cafeteria banquet was given in the doctor’s honor. The program was filled with sparkling numbers given by those who know and knew the doctor best in his various stations in life.

Few are they who in this world ever attain to greatness and fewer still are they who having attained to it are able to remain on the pedestal for any great length of time. It needs greatness to attain to greatness but it needs still more of the same virtue to retain it. He alone possesses it; as Lord Lytton points out.

“Who serves a greatness not his own for neither praise nor pelf.”

As that is the distinction enjoyed by the subject of these few remarks.

Fifty years ago this month there came into the city of Maquoketa a young man with high hopes and buoyant spirits. He had graduated the previous year from Albany Medical College, and in response to Horace Greeley’s advice, decided to go west. Thus it happened that in the year 1869 he landed in what is now our beautiful city. He has been here ever since and is today not only one of the outstanding personalities of Jackson County but of Eastern Iowa, for he is the one and only Dr. A. B. Bowen. The story of the last fifty years of his life would, indeed, be a most interesting and profitable volume. It would tell of vicious battles, fought in the heat of summer and the cold of winter; it would speak of trial and tribulation, of joy and gladness; it would relate of failure and defeat, of victory and conquest. It would reveal a heart as big as ever beat beneath the human breast; a mind as keen and a memory as retentive as ever lodged within the head of man, and an individuality as distinct as the Sun. It would be a volume such as only a country doctor of his ability and experience could write. And who would not be delighted to read it? While it is not given to doctors in rural districts to select specialist, nevertheless his record contains 1,400 obstetric patients; 400 cases, and many of the above mentioned operations were performed in no more convenient a place than the ordinary farm house kitchen. He will always be remembered in this part of the country as being the pioneer operator or gastroenterology, hysterectomy, gall stone operations and appendectomy. He is at present caring for the fifth generation of some of our leading families. A most eloquent and self explanatory fact.

He has been a member of the Iowa Medical Society for 47 years, and attended its meetings continuously for thirty years. He is also affiliated with the American Medical Association, and has attended its meetings in all parts of the United States. He has served as U. S. Pensioner Surgeon for over thirty years, surgeon for the C. & N. W. Ry Co. for over twenty-five years, and was President of the Society in 1914. During the Civil war he served as a surgeon on board the Neptune. Throughout our participation in the European war he was a member of the “local Board” for Jackson County, appointed by President Wilson and Gov. Harding, and examined 1,500 registrants.