Theresa Bowman

The National Funeral Directors & Morticians Association, Inc. announces the transition of Ms. Theresa Bowman, Mother of Association Member, Roslyn Riggins Howard.

The National Funeral Directors & Morticians Association, Inc. sincerely sympathizes with the Bowman Family. May God continue to watch over you all. We give you this one thought to keep, "Although it's difficult today to see beyond sorrow, may looking back in memory help comfort you tomorrow."

A life of commitment. A journey of strength and endurance. A story uniquely her own.

Theresa Bowman was born on February 4, 1945, in Brooklyn, New York, to the late Jesse Bowman and Reaver Goldsmith Bowman. She was the seventh of thirteen children — seven girls and six boys — and grew up in the midst of a large and lively family.

Theresa held a unique place among her siblings. With three older sisters and three younger sisters, she often proudly spoke of growing up surrounded by her brothers — three older and three younger. Those early years helped shape the strong, independent and no-nonsense woman she would become.

Educated in the New York City public school system, Theresa spent the first forty years of her life in Brooklyn and Queens. She became the mother of ten children — five daughters and five sons — and her children can certainly testify that there was rarely a dull moment in their household.

Life carried Theresa and her family through many places, circumstances and seasons. Some years were easier than others, but along the way came the experiences that became family stories: children playing outside until it was time to come home, summer breakfast and lunch programs, making a meal stretch, laughter among siblings and learning at an early age how to make something out of very little.

Those experiences helped produce children who learned to survive, provide for themselves and eventually build lives of their own.

In the mid-1980s, Theresa left New York and made Harlem, Georgia her home. What began as a new chapter became more than four decades of putting down roots in the South. Her youngest son, Chris, was born in Georgia, and Augusta became the place where Theresa would spend the remainder of her life.

Theresa enjoyed life’s simple pleasures. Like many of her siblings, she was an avid reader who could finish a book seemingly in no time. She enjoyed suspenseful movies, her favorite television programs, and cooking for her family.

She was personable and even keeled, a woman who enjoyed conversation and could talk to just about anyone. Theresa was straightforward, proud and unmistakably herself. She had little interest in making life more complicated than it needed to be. If circumstances changed, she adjusted and kept moving.

Her children will also remember the sayings that became part of Theresa’s unmistakable way of dispensing wisdom: “You make your bed hard, you have to lie in it,” and “You lie with dogs, you catch fleas.” Her words, expressions and distinctive personality became part of the language and memories of the family she raised.

Theresa’s eighty-one years were not without hardship. She experienced difficult seasons, profound loss and circumstances that demanded strength and endurance. Among the deepest of those sorrows was experiencing the deaths of four of her daughters and, later, her first granddaughter.

Still, Theresa continued.

As years became decades, children became adults, grandchildren arrived, great-grandchildren followed, and the family that began with Theresa grew across generations. Life brought maturity, greater understanding and a recognition that every person’s journey contains chapters of triumph as well as challenge.

Theresa lived hers in a way that was uniquely her own.

She was a daughter, sister, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. She knew struggle and perseverance, sorrow and laughter, change and continuity. She carried the experiences of a lifetime and reached eighty-one years having witnessed a family tree grow far beyond the life that began in Brooklyn in 1945.

Theresa leaves to celebrate her life: her daughter, Roslyn Riggins-Howard; her sons, Darren Bowman (wife, Glori), Vincent Bowman (wife, Ramona), Andre Bowman, Germaine Bowman and Chris Bowman; her grandchildren and great-grandchildren; her surviving siblings, Thelma, Phyllis, Charlene, Jesse and Matthew; and a host of nieces, nephews, extended family members and others whose lives were touched by hers.

She was preceded in death by her parents, Jesse Bowman and Reaver Goldsmith Bowman; her daughters, Stephanie Bowman, Yolanda Riggins, Felicia Bowman and Raquel “Kelly” Bowman; her granddaughter, Raquel Ebony Daniels; siblings, Claudia, Laura, Vincent, Larry, Eric, Anthony and Carla; and other loved ones who completed their journeys before her.

At eighty-one, Theresa leaves behind more than dates on a page. She leaves memories, lessons, stories, laughter, family sayings and generations who carry something of her forward.

She put in her dues.

She carried her scars.

She endured.

And she kept going.

Her journey was hers alone, but the family that came through her remains a living testament to a life fully traveled.