Early Life
His maternal grandfather, Chester L. Garratt, an attorney by profession, was a hobbyist and researcher in many areas. Garratt gave him his first "rare" coin, a well worn 1893 Columbian half dollar. This would be his first exposure to numismatics.
In 1945–46, his next exposure to numismatics was a friend’s home in which a dozen or more Indian pennies were embedded face-up in a concrete walk near the front door. In 1948, his family moved to Forty Fort, Pennsylvania (about an hour away from Honesdale).
As a 13-year-old high school student, Bowers's interests included reptiles, scouting, short-wave radio, Strombecker kit models of World War II airplanes, and rocks and minerals. During this time Bowers became an interested in the written word. He received Raymond L. Ditmars' Reptiles of North America from his mother as a Christmas gift in 1952. According to Bowers, Ditmars, who was curator of reptiles at the New York Zoological Garden (Bronx Zoo), had a way of making just about anything sound fascinating. From such experiences, Bowers learned the power of the written word and how it can spur one to a great enthusiasm for acquisition.
Read more about this topic: Q. David Bowers
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“In the early forties and fifties almost everybody “had about enough to live on,” and young ladies dressed well on a hundred dollars a year. The daughters of the richest man in Boston were dressed with scrupulous plainness, and the wife and mother owned one brocade, which did service for several years. Display was considered vulgar. Now, alas! only Queen Victoria dares to go shabby.”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)
“[Man’s] life consists in a relation with all things: stone, earth, trees, flowers, water, insects, fishes, birds, creatures, sun, rainbow, children, women, other men. But his greatest and final relation is with the sun.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)