“The Forum is proud to have carried three articles by writer and editor John S. Bowman who passed away on July 28th. This is the brief tribute I wrote for his memorial on August 6 at Look Park in Northampton, Massachusetts. And here is a link to his obituary published in the Hampshire Gazette.”

Christina Perez and I will not be able to make the trip from San Francisco to the memorial in Look Park, and our son Nelson is in Tokyo, but we are there in spirit to celebrate the life of my dear uncle, John Stewart Bowman. Our love goes out to Francesca, Michela, Alex and Leo, and all of John’s friends and family.

On March 31 of this year I had the good fortune to appear on Talk the Talk, a WHMP radio show, hosted by Buz Eisenberg and Bill Newman. The topic was a new book I was part of authoring called Labor Power and Strategy. In the course of introducing the book I mentioned that the book had Northampton roots because it had been carefully edited by NoHo resident John Stewart Bowman. Bill Newman quickly exclaimed, “We know John Bowman. He has been on this show many times.” This warmed my heart because I knew Uncle John was listening from Linda Manor. And of course I knew that Uncle John probably had been on the show talking baseball, opera or the history of Northampton. He was broad reaching and ecumenical in his intellectual pursuits! And he was a no nonsense editor. He would often ask me in exasperation, “Didn’t you learn basic punctuation at Harvard?”

RIP John S. Bowman, my favorite uncle!

Peter B. Olney, son of Elinor B. Olney

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