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David Bowles, a native of Austin, Texas, lives in San Antonio with his best friend and constant companion Lulubelle, a yellow Lab. Always interested in history and genealogy, he started writing stories of his family to ensure that his son, daughter, and three grandchildren had accurate records of the family history. However, while the original versions, written in narrative textbook style, did maintain the records, they didn’t maintain the interest of the readers. So he used his imagination and creativity to fill in the gaps of what might have happened when the details weren’t available. He created dialog and scenes to add true life drama to the Westward Sagas from colonial days to the settlement of the West. He hopes these stories are as exciting to his readers as the stories told by the previous generations of his family were to him.
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From the author of The Westward Sagas:
As a young boy, I loved to hear about my grandparents and great grandparents. My parents, aunts, and uncles told wonderful stories and painted vivid pictures of every event. I spent my childhood summers at the ranch belonging to my Uncle Lester and Aunt Izola Bowles near Marble Falls, Texas. Aunt Izola was a great cook, and I always gained a few pounds during my summer visits. She and Uncle Lester tended to my elderly grandfather John W. Bowles until his death.
Aunt Izola spent the days with Granddad while Uncle Lester worked cattle or tended to the many details of running a ranch. She spent hours listening to her father-in-law's family stories and could recite them better than her husband or any of his siblings. In the evenings, we sat on the front porch. Sometimes, my cousins and I took turns cranking the handle of the old-fashioned ice cream maker. Even if we had homemade peach ice cream, we ate the peaches picked fresh from her orchard as Uncle Lester or Aunt Izola told tales of long ago.
Those stories intrigued me because they really happened — and they happened to people that were connected to me. I wanted to know more about my ancestors and developed an early interest in history, the only subject I ever excelled in.
In the late 1970s, I started my research by interviewing my father and his oldest sibling, my Uncle Elmer. His collection of old family pictures and original family documents included a family Bible that had belonged to his Grandmother Elnora Van Cleve, in which she had recorded births, marriages, and deaths beginning as early as 1845.
Uncle Elmer gave me the Bible and family documents, which have been used to trace our earliest Mitchell ancestors back to Ireland in 1637.
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Spring House is based on the history of the Mitchell Family as well as the history of life in Colonial America. I have done extensive historical and genealogical research and have written nothing — and will write nothing in future books in The Westward Sagas— that contradicts known historical facts, characters, or events.
The books are as presented as historical fiction rather than as nonfiction to allow me to imagine and create details of how events might have occurred when those details are not actually known.
To make these stories as exciting to his readers as the stories told by the previous generations of his family were to him, he created dialogue and scenes to fill in the gaps in history. While remaining faithful to known facts, he began writing fiction to add true life drama to the stories that would become The Westward Sagas, tales from colonial days to the settlement of the West. The first book in the series, Spring House, is now available, and David is working on Book 2: Adam's Daughters.
Book this author, genealogist, and tale-spinner: David Bowles speaks on topics relating to the Revolutionary War and family history. Specific topics include The Role of Churches in the American Revolution, Women in the Revolutionary War, Farming during Revolutionary Times, and Turning Point of the Revolution: The Battle of Guilford Courthouse. David also gives presentations about researching and preserving family history.  |
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