Fred S. Bowen, from Wisconsin, was the proprietor of this hotel, and his wife, Bella (Jones) Bowen, who hailed from Michigan, helped run the place. Her duties probably included that of front desk clerk. Their daughter, Jennie, who was about 14 years old when this picture was taken, waited tables. I wonder if the man and woman standing together on the front stoop are Fred and Bella. Maybe one of the two women standing to the right is Jennie. At the time this picture was taken, Fred would have been about 33 years old and Bella about 35 years old.
Note the wagon tracks in the foreground and what appear to be sheets hanging on the line over to the right. Behind the clothes line I see what might be a telegraph pole and further back some telephone poles. I wonder if the dark horizontal line in front of the telephone poles is a set of railroad tracks.
Otis is in Washington County, which is named after George Washington, as are about 30 other counties in the U.S. Taking Highway 34, Otis is approximately 37 miles east and a little south of Brush.
About a year or so after this picture was taken, the Bowen’s moved on. By 1919, Fred and Bella were living in Olympia, Washington, where Fred worked as a truck driver. By the next year he had gone into partnership with Phillip H. Lepper to run a grocery store and later a general merchandise store.
Fred died at age 83 in 1960 and Bella at age 93 in 1968. They are both buried at Masonic Memorial Park in Tumwater, Washington.
REFERENCES:
- 1910, 1920, & 1930 Censuses (www.ancestry.com )
- 1911 Colorado Business Directory, Otis, Washington County, U.S. Genweb Archives at http://files.usgwarchives.net/co/washington/history/directories/1911/1911-otis.txt
- Find A Grave at https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/21423325/fred-s.-bowen
- Olympia, WA, city directories from 1919, 1921, 1930, 1932, & 1934 (www.ancestry.com )
- “Otis, Colorado,” Wikiepedia.org at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otis,_Colorado
