Eliza Jane (Sanders) Bowens

Mrs. Eliza Jane (Saunders) Bowen was born in the winter of 1848, the child of Mr. Alexander Saunders. She and her family were free as early as 1850, when we find them in Carroll County. The family worked as laborers.

Sometime before 1870, she married Mr. Samuel Bowen, a Civil War Veteran. They lived with her father, and Harriett Sanders who may have been her mother or stepmother. The family lived near Frizzelburg, and Mrs. Bowen kept house for them and their infant child.

In 1880, the family is in Frederick and had grown to four children, although given the spread in ages, it is possible they had more children who died in their infancy. Mrs. Bowen continued to keep house.

By 1900, Mrs. Bowen and her family had moved back to Carroll, and were living near Westminster. She had a total of 11 children, and sadly only six were still living. She had not yet learned to read or write. She is living with some of her children and a grandchild.

Mrs. Eliza Jane Bowen became ill and passed away in August of 1903. She is buried in the Bowen family plot (albeit without her own headstone), next to her husband and daughter, in Ellsworth Cemetery in Westminster. Maryland.