Page 1 of 12 
 
Washington Women’s Heritage Project records, 1900-2000 
University of Washington Libraries Special Collections 
Delphine Bowers 
January 29, 1998 
Cassette 2, Side 1 
 
 
Jenny Kurzweil  00:04 
January 28, 1998, my second tape with Delphine Bowers. We're talking about after her semi-
retirement. 
 
Delphine Bowers  00:24 
Okay. This man said that I was unusual, and what he appreciated about me was that I was so 
open, that he didn't expect people my age to be open, for instance, to his belief system, or to 
people-- I could step into it with him and use it as a framework for working with him. And he 
said he appreciated that so much, and he had referred people to me, and when they would call 
me, they would say, "I hear you're Pagan friendly." And I decided, thinking about that, that I 
can't think of anything I'd rather have people say to me, that I would be open minded and ready 
to hear and respectful of and honoring other people's beliefs and opinions. And I thought, how 
much of that is because of this interesting coming together of exposures that I've had in my life. 
And so that's something that Miss Liggett did for me, it was, she was very important. Now, I 
didn't have any warm, fuzzy contact, you can't. There was no one that I touched. There was no 
one that-- I can't remember anyone that I cried with even, I know I cried, but I think I pretty 
much cried into my pillow at night. Because it wasn't, it wasn't a place where it was-- It was even 
a little bit destructive of morale to have somebody lose it.  
 
Jenny Kurzweil  02:10 
Oh, I couldn't imagine. 
 
Delphine Bowers  02:11 
Yeah, this, that, it's-- There, wasn't, it wasn't that feelings were not honored. It's just that you had 
to not spill them over onto other people. 
 
Jenny Kurzweil  02:26 
You had to keep it together.  
 
Delphine Bowers  02:28 
Yeah, and boundaries were very important. But of course, I was happier than I'd ever been 
because I was me, and I did my thing, and this, I've never, ever been allowed to do that. 
 
Page 2 of 12 
 
Jenny Kurzweil  02:42 
Did you have friends your own age in camp?  
 
Delphine Bowers  02:46 
I had some, yes. And then, after I'd been there two years, they consolidated the little Iloilo camp 
with the big Manila camp. The Iloilo camp only had 100 in it.  
 
Jenny Kurzweil  03:00 
How do you spell Iloilo?  
 
Delphine Bowers  03:02 
I-L-O-I-L-O.  
 
Jenny Kurzweil  03:03 
Oh, okay.  
 
Delphine Bowers  03:05 
And then they sent for those of us who had parents in that camp, and we went down to Manila, 
we went in an open truck, and were reunited with our parents. And people, my friends, had 
talked about what a wonderful thing it was to be reunited with their parents, and it wasn't 
wonderful for me. When I heard that my parents were alive and that I was going to have to rejoin 
them, I got very depressed and my, my grades dropped. And it was because I knew they wouldn't 
like me, I knew they wouldn't approve of me. I knew they would not like the direction my life 
had taken. And they, that was true. They criticized my table manners, I scraped my plate, I'd 
been hungry. They simply did not like my freedom. When we came back to this country, they put 
me in a finishing school, that didn't work. And it was like, there must, of course, I needed 
structure. Looking back at it, of course, I needed structure. There must have been a way of giving 
me structure more lovingly. 
 
Jenny Kurzweil  04:26 
It seems like, from what you're saying, that in some ways, you were almost like an adult in the 
camp, I mean-- 
 
Delphine Bowers  04:33 
Oh, sure, I was 14.  
 
Jenny Kurzweil  04:34 
Right, and that you were very independent and emotionally independent as well, and then 
suddenly being thrown back with your parents. Did that feel like they were wanting you to be a 
child again? I mean, did it seem incongruous?  
 
Delphine Bowers  04:48 
Well, it wasn't, it was that-- Well, being a child should have some sense of being nurtured. And 
there wasn't that. It was a sense of being in prison, I mean, in an emotional prison. The physical 
prison was not a particular problem to me, I didn't like being hungry. But that was not the 
problem to me that the emotional prison was. 
Page 3 of 12 
 
 
Jenny Kurzweil  05:29 
When did you come back to the United States? 
 
Delphine Bowers  05:32 
In 1945, in the spring of 1945. We were liberated in February, and it was, we were put on a troop 
ship. It was, let's see, February 7, we were liberated, March 28, it was just about this time. So 
this is like 53 years ago, March 28 we got on the ship and I think we got off the ship something 
like May 10, it was about. We [?left?] and said it was 40 days and 40 nights that we were on the 
ship. And we were, you know, in blackout, and traveled in [inaudible] and saw some submarines 
and had some-- It was, it was strenuous. 
 
Jenny Kurzweil  06:24 
Yeah. 
 
Delphine Bowers  06:24 
And coming back to this country, of course, again, I didn't know how to be. Not only had my 
upbringing been weird, but I missed all the things that teenagers do. I was 17 by then. And I went 
to Stevens--  The first summer we spent in Cascade, Idaho, which was just a recuperation time.  
 
Jenny Kurzweil  06:53 
How'd you end up in Idaho?  
 
Delphine Bowers  06:55 
Because my stepmother had a sister there. And my father didn't come back with us, he went 
down to to get his business together so he could sell it and--  
 
Jenny Kurzweil  07:08 
In the Philippines? 
 
Delphine Bowers  07:10 
He went down to Iloilo from Manila, he didn't come back on the ship with us. But he was there 
that Christmas. He came home for Christmas and then he went back in-- I don't I'm not real sure 
about all of this going back and forth, but he didn't really come to stay until probably 1947. And 
then I went to Stephens College and oh, I did dislike it, it was a terrible place.  
 
Jenny Kurzweil  07:37 
Where was that? 
 
Delphine Bowers  07:38 
In Columbia, Missouri. 
 
Jenny Kurzweil  07:39 
Was that the finishing school?  
 
Delphine Bowers  07:40 
Page 4 of 12 
 
Yeah, that's the finishing school. It's a two year women's college. And my parents decided that I 
needed to be someplace where they would really teach me how to be a nice lady. And I hated it, I 
remember at orientation, they gave us this big spiel about, "Wherever you go, you'll be 
recognized as a Stephen Susie." I can remember thinking, I don't want to be known as a Stephen 
Susie, I don't want people to look at me and say, "Well, there's a Stephen Susie," no way. 
Because I was wearing jeans, and I hated dressing for dinner, and I, you know, liked hanging 
around the stables, and all those things. Although I never learned to ride properly, I was too 
scared. I never learned to do the things I wanted to, I never could relax. And I loved horses, and I 
loved it, but-- And again, nobody taught me. Nobody would work with me about not being 
scared. They worked with me about how to hold my hands, and how to hold my feet, and that 
kind of stuff, but nobody could talk to me about why I was so frightened. And they just didn't 
know, now they do that, they have ways of getting people over that. I talked to someone once 
who said, "Oh yeah, [?lead your horse?]." 
 
Jenny Kurzweil  08:57 
Would you ever think about doing it now? 
 
Delphine Bowers  08:59 
No, I have too much-- My diabetes is too far advanced, I have too much aches and pains and 
neuropathy and arthritis and stuff to do it now. And I realize that I would be stiff again. The, 
that's a-- This writing assignment about the body is a big one for me. So, I went two years to 
Stephens College, and it was the first summer that I was in school, and I was 18, that I spent with 
the cousins that I just got through visiting. And I hadn't seen them since, I hadn't seen them for 
52 years.  
 
Jenny Kurzweil  09:41 
Wow.  
 
Delphine Bowers  09:43 
So, this was a big deal. So I, my grades were not very good, I wasn't happy there. Later on, my 
father said, "I never knew you were unhappy there. You didn't have to stay." I said, "I didn't 
know I didn't have to stay." I wanted to, you know, to go to one of the Eastern women's colleges. 
 
Jenny Kurzweil  10:07 
What did they teach you at Stephens college?  
 
Delphine Bowers  10:09 
Well, they had a course for personal appearance that I thought, I thought it was obscene. 
 
Jenny Kurzweil  10:19 
It wasn't academic at all?  
 
Delphine Bowers  10:21 
Oh, yeah, well, yeah, they had academic courses, sure. I mean, I had chemistry and I had biology 
and I had-- They waived the English requirement because they gave me a test and I did so well 
that I didn't have to take it.  
Page 5 of 12 
 
 
Jenny Kurzweil  10:34 
And probably Latin too?  
 
Delphine Bowers  10:36 
Well, there wasn't-- They were not into Latin, that was not what their stuff was. But I should 
have had the English, because I didn't know how to write a paper. I did find out the library thing, 
the library research. They had us look stuff up, and I just figured it out while I was there, I'd 
never heard of any of this stuff, but it was, you know, it wasn't hard to find. And my grammar 
was good, and I understood grammar, and I had a very good vocabulary, and they didn't do 
anything about my writing skills, they didn't check to see whether I had any. And the main thing 
was I didn't know how to organize a paper, and I never learned. I managed to get completely 
through undergraduate school without ever writing a paper. Pretty clever.  
 
Jenny Kurzweil  11:22 
Yeah, I [?was going to say that?]. 
 
Delphine Bowers  11:32 
But I don't think that that's really ideal. So they, no, I had and I got-- I was very disorganized, 
and I can remember the chemistry teacher telling me that I had to get myself in hand, that this 
was my last chance. Well, if you're a freshman in college, nothing's the last chance.  
 
Jenny Kurzweil  11:51 
Was this like a junior college? 
 
Delphine Bowers  11:54 
Yeah.  
 
Jenny Kurzweil  11:54 
Oh, okay.  
 
Delphine Bowers  11:55 
And they had the personal appearance course, you had to make a diagram of your figure on 
graph paper with, you know, how broad your shoulders were, and how big you were across the 
bust, and your waistline, and your hips, how long you were, the waist, and have this little 
representation of your figure, even the lengths of your legs and of your knees to the ground. And 
so you'd have this thing, and then you were supposed to tell from that what clothes would be 
becoming to you, what direction patterns should go, for instance, or whether you'd wear large 
patterns or small patterns. Well, I thought it was really obscene, I just thought it was not nice. It 
didn't seem nice to be to do that to your body. Well, I think part of it was because I wanted to 
ignore my body. I realize now that it wasn't quite as high minded as I thought. And I did it for 
other people who couldn't figure out how to do it, but I refused to do it for myself, and I got a D 
in the course. 
 
Jenny Kurzweil  13:06 
Why did you want to ignore your body, do you think? 
Page 6 of 12 
 
 
Delphine Bowers  13:11 
Because I didn't understand my sexuality, I didn't understand what those feelings were. I mean, I 
understood it, but I hadn't done any fooling around in school. I had parents who thought sex was 
dirty, and so I did not-- I mean, the whole thing of not knowing what was pretty, not knowing 
what a good figure was, not being able to do things, active things, with my body, not being able 
to dance, not being able to do the things that other people do growing up, it was as if my body 
didn't exist. And I can remember once going briefly to a not very bright therapist, but finding out 
that I really thought my body was a little donkey that carried my mind around. That was my 
blurred vision of my body, that it was not anything that was a part of me, or that I should enjoy, 
and that sensual and sensuous were like, what does that mean? And my stepmother was, I mean, 
I can remember her saying things like, "Delphine, that sounds sexual," if I said anything that 
might be interpreted, and, "That's bad." So, I didn't learn how to flirt, I didn't learn how to be 
around men. There were no men in the household until I was seven, it was just two old maids 
and me. And my father was very distant and very disapproving, and worked hard, was gone long 
hours. So, until I was 11, I wasn't around men. In boarding school, there wasn't much [?in the 
way?] of men. I had one or two male teachers when I got to high school, and occasionally we 
would, we, the teachers had to rotate through all of the tables when we ate. So you'd sometimes 
have a man at the table when you ate [coughs]. In camp, I didn't have a father or a brother or an 
uncle or a cousin.  
 
Jenny Kurzweil  15:20 
Did you know any young men there [?close to?] your age? 
 
Delphine Bowers  15:25 
Well, there were kids, but, you see, I was, by then, so sure that my body was something to be be 
annoyed with or disgusted with or to avoid, that I wasn't attracted to boys because, and if I if a 
boy did approach me in any way, I'd push them away because I didn't know what to do. 
 
Jenny Kurzweil  15:46 
Did you ever have crushes on anyone?  
 
Delphine Bowers  15:48 
Oh, yeah. 
 
Jenny Kurzweil  15:49 
Yeah, you did? 
 
Delphine Bowers  15:49 
But I didn't talk about it. 
 
Jenny Kurzweil  15:51 
Did you know what they were?  
 
Delphine Bowers  15:52 
Yeah.  
Page 7 of 12 
 
 
Jenny Kurzweil  15:52 
You did? 
 
Delphine Bowers  15:53 
But I thought that it was stupid or dumb, because who could like me? And it was not, not a good 
way to grow up. That part of it was very bad, but it didn't have anything to do with camp. There 
were other girls who, who grew up normally, more normally, as teenagers, they may not have 
had quite the social life they would have. I mean, they didn't have people taking them to movies 
and dancing and that kind of thing, but they did, you know, go on walk around, walks around the 
tennis court and sit and talk to boys and things like that. So that part, so, it was, it was not a good 
way to grow up, in that way, but it was all because of, starting in the beginning, being reared by, 
without men and with women who had never married. And I don't know whether they ever-- 
[inaudible] had had a love affair at some point, but she was so repressed, she, no one talked 
about that. I mean, I never heard, "Isn't he a handsome man?" 
 
Jenny Kurzweil  17:00 
And-- 
 
Delphine Bowers  17:01 
Just nothing. 
 
Jenny Kurzweil  17:02 
And that's what that class was all about, was attracting men or glory, not glorifying but-- 
 
Delphine Bowers  17:10 
Well, it wasn't. They never talked about men. It was about appearance, and appearance being 
very important, and the importance of being feminine and ladylike. Now, they never would have 
advocated that you show any bosom, or anything like that, but it was about wearing a girdle and 
crossing your legs, or not crossing your legs, or keeping your knees together, and all of this 
absurdity. I just hated it, it was just really stupid. So, I can remember someone coming to see me 
and saying, "I've never seen anyone who got a-- I wanted to see you," it was a faculty member, 
"who got a D in personal appearance." But it was a very stupid class. And it was, of course, they 
were afraid that nobody would recognize me as a Stephen Susie. Or if they did recognize me as a 
Stephen Susie, that I would somehow or other be a blot on the record. So that was-- And then, 
when I got to to the university, I came out here. My parents had settled in Olympia.  
 
Jenny Kurzweil  18:18 
Oh.  
 
Delphine Bowers  18:19 
So after I finished Stephens, I came out here and enrolled in the University of Washington and 
decided to be a microbiology major, because I still had this vision of being a great scientist. And 
I think that that had to do with, by really wanting to help people and do things that were 
worthwhile, but believing that I, there was no way I could relate to people. There was no way 
that I could be a psychologist or a sociologist or anything, and I was just a bust at relating to 
Page 8 of 12 
 
people. So I'd do it by discovering the cure for the common cold or something. And again, I did 
date. I went steady both my junior and senior year, and they were alliances that really didn't 
amount to anything, didn't go anyplace, and that's just as well. But then after I graduated, I 
looked at my transcript, and I didn't have any of the things that I wanted to take, it was all 
science, because they didn't ask you to be balanced in those days. In fact, they got very upset if 
you took something out of your major. So, I stayed in another quarter, took a, like a, they call me 
a fourth quarter senior, although I had graduated, and I took some sociology and I took some 
philosophy and things like that.  
 
Jenny Kurzweil  19:45 
Did you like those?  
 
Delphine Bowers  19:46 
I liked sociology real well, the philosophy, I couldn't get my head around it. And I think, I don't 
know, I think that I simply had, had such a, an unbalanced development that I just didn't get it. I 
don't understand, I didn't understand the abstraction. And that's really interesting, because I'm 
very right brained. 
 
Jenny Kurzweil  20:14 
And being right brained, how did the science go? How did you do in the science?  
 
Delphine Bowers  20:18 
I did very well in the theory, very badly in the lab work. Didn't get it, that you shouldn't be a 
microbiologist unless you could do well in the lab work. And of course, the advising system was 
such that nobody ever said anything to me about my lack of coordination.  
 
Jenny Kurzweil  20:37 
How many women were in the sciences?  
 
Delphine Bowers  20:39 
Oh, in microbiology, they were mostly women, because they were all going to be lab techs.  
 
Jenny Kurzweil  20:43 
Oh, okay. 
 
Delphine Bowers  20:47 
There were only two women in that class of medical school. Now, it's over half women, but 
there'd be two or maybe three women in each class. So then men would go into pharmacy, and 
there were few women who would go into pharmacy, and a few women would be doctors. There 
were practically no men that were going to be nurses. I don't think there were any at that point, 
because this was in the '40s and microbiology was, there were a few men, but I would say was 80 
percent women. 
 
Jenny Kurzweil  21:26 
Did you live in the dorms?  
 
Page 9 of 12 
 
Delphine Bowers  21:27 
Yeah, [?I drive by?] where I used to live all the time. 
 
Jenny Kurzweil  21:32 
How did you like it in Seattle, compared to, you were in Missouri before that? 
 
Delphine Bowers  21:38 
Oh, well, I, I liked Seattle. I felt much more at home here than I did in Missouri. Because, of 
course, Stephens College, we were really isolated from the town and from everything. And I 
didn't have particularly good grades at the UW because, again, my parents were breathing down 
my neck. As soon as I got back to where my parents, I was in the control of my parents, my 
grades dropped because I was doing it, I was not doing well at them. And they were big into, you 
know, you need to do something that you could earn a living in. Well, I probably would have 
liked to have been a literature major or a sociology major. Heaven knows, they don't make a 
living in anything, they do something else. One of my kids was a psychology major, and she's a 
product manager for a software company. Another was a philosophy major, she's a software 
tester for Microsoft. My son was a, was an education major, got a certificate and all that stuff, 
he's a sales manager for a software company. And my oldest daughter was a choral conducting 
major, got her teaching certificate, and she's a fiber artist. So, I lasted about two years as a 
microbiologist.  
 
Jenny Kurzweil  23:20 
So you did indeed do it? 
 
Delphine Bowers  23:22 
For a little while, I was a lab tech for, for pediatricians. And that was really fun, I loved working 
with the kids. But I didn't, I, after I had kids of my own, I didn't want to do that anymore. And I, 
I just, I worked, for a while, at the public health laboratory, and I got fired for being too slow, 
even though I had a degree in microbiology. And it paid well. It paid 270 dollars a month. That 
was a lot of money in those days. 
 
Jenny Kurzweil  23:52 
So did you have an apartment by yourself?  
 
Delphine Bowers  23:54 
No, I got married in 1950 and I married a man-- I married the kind of a person that you would 
expect me to marry, someone who was, who was distant, who was critical, and he was both an 
alcoholic and gay. So I didn't have to contend with any real maleness, and that male energy, I, he 
didn't have much of that. 
 
Jenny Kurzweil  24:31 
How did you meet him?  
 
Delphine Bowers  24:32 
He was the organist choir master at the church that I was going to. 
 
Page 10 of 12 
 
Jenny Kurzweil  24:34 
Did you meet him when you were still in college?  
 
Delphine Bowers  24:39 
It was when I was that fourth quarter senior. And we nearly destroyed each other. And he's more 
unfortunate than I am, and I wish he were more fortunate. And, and by unfortunate, I mean 
miserable. And he was, he was an alcoholic when I married him, but nobody knew [inaudible] 
alcoholic then. And I think he knew he was gay, but he thought that by being, he tried it before, 
being married, and that marriage had ended with divorce.  
 
Jenny Kurzweil  25:18 
Was he older than you?  
 
Delphine Bowers  25:20 
Yeah, he was 10 years older. He's almost 80. 
 
Jenny Kurzweil  25:23 
Oh, now he is? 
 
Delphine Bowers  25:23 
And he's still drinking. And I think he really loved me for a brief period of time, and really 
thought that being married would cure him of being gay. But of course, it doesn't work that way, 
and it was a really tragic time for both of us, except that he, he essentially lied about it. And I 
would, I can remember when Bill was little, and Bill is-- We were married 30 years, and Bill is 
going to be, just turned 41, [?42?]. And he, I remember saying to the man, the Episcopal priest 
that had married us, and who was Jack's friend, brought him out here as an organist choir master. 
They've known each other during the war, I said, "I think Jack is homosexual."  
 
Jenny Kurzweil  26:28 
Bill said that? 
 
Delphine Bowers  26:29 
I said that, when Bill was a baby. And he said, "I think you better lose weight, keep your house 
more neatly, and then he'll pay more attention to you." One of the ways that you can look at 
marriages is to look at the conversations people have, you know, how they propose to each other, 
and all of those things. And it was all right there, it was really clear that we got married because 
we both wanted children. And yes, we did believe we loved each other, but both of us wanted 
kids. And I can remember we were out, probably at the Rathskeller, because that's where we 
spent a lot of time. 
 
Jenny Kurzweil  27:24 
The where? 
 
Delphine Bowers  27:24 
The Rathskeller, it was a beer, beer parlor.  
 
Page 11 of 12 
 
Jenny Kurzweil  27:24 
Oh. 
 
Delphine Bowers  27:25 
And it was a nice place, it was where people used to, the, a bunch of people used to, and I know 
now they were probably professional singers, used to hang out there and sing a lot. And so it was 
nice, it was fun being there. And I remember my talking about really wanting six kids and, but 
that I didn't know anyone who would be willing to put up with me to have six kids. And he said, 
"I think we should make those children legitimate. Will you marry me?" And so it was so 
obvious, looking back on that, that we got married because we both wanted children. It wasn't, "I 
want to spend the rest of my life with you," it was, "Okay, I'll make your children legitimate." 
And he did, and I did-- four was enough, and he-- How are we doing?  
 
Jenny Kurzweil  28:25 
We're doing fine.  
 
Delphine Bowers  28:26 
He had affairs all through our married life. 
 
Jenny Kurzweil  28:30 
With men? 
 
Delphine Bowers  28:31 
Yeah, and I didn't know it, and I can remember saying to him, "I think you're homosexual," and 
I, "there's something about the way you touch men," and that kind of thing. And he'd say, "Oh, 
Del, how can you say a thing like that." And I can remember, about five years before I divorced 
him, saying, "Look, I think you're homosexual, and I'm not, and neither one of us is getting any 
satisfaction," and I didn't know that he was fooling around, but, "Why don't we simply have an 
open marriage, with each of us having permission to get our satisfaction where we want?" 
 
Jenny Kurzweil  29:08 
Did you still care emotionally for him at that point?  
 
Delphine Bowers  29:13 
Not much. And I remember, and of course, he was already doing that. I can remember saying, "If 
I have that permission, I don't know whether I'd use it or not, but I want that permission." And he 
said, "My marriage vows means something to me, even if yours don't to you." And he was 
having lots of affairs, and I believe, just as I believe-- He also, he also was, was a chicken hawk.  
 
Jenny Kurzweil  29:50 
What's that mean?  
 
Delphine Bowers  29:51 
He liked young boys. Now, he never, I don't think he ever touched, sexually, or ever was sexual, 
openly, with anyone under, whatever it was, 16 or 18, because they're jail bait. But I think that he 
really was, I know he was really turned on by kids that were about junior high age, and that, one 
Page 12 of 12 
 
of the reasons he didn't continue teaching junior high was because he was [?turned on by it?]. 
And I found out, many years later, that he had, one of the junior high kids in the neighborhood 
had gone to his mother and said they didn't like the way my husband touched him, and he, she 
had confronted him about it, but never told me, which was-- And I went through a lot of 
[?misery?] about that, and it was fairly recent, because, on some level, I believe that I must have 
known that. And that, it's one of the things that I was in denial about. If there's an alcoholic 
person in the family, you can be sure there's a lot of denial, that's part of it. But I believe-- 
[recording ends]. 
 