In Memory of Beatrice Bowles (1943-2021)

Written by Gini Grossenbacher

With great sadness, we announce the passing of our luminous WNBA-San Francisco Chapter member, Beatrice Bowles, who died October 19, 2021. Though born of two influential San Francisco families, the Crowleys and the Bowles, she veered away from her high society roots in the 1970s to fulfill her literary dream. She characterized herself as “a storyteller, writer, and recording artist of wonder tales that connect children to nature’s deep joys and eternal wisdom.” 

Her love of the natural world encompassed the mythical and cultural underpinnings that connect all living things. Her readers and listeners encounter adventurous youngsters, bullies, and magical spiders in her Spider Grandmother’s Web of Wonders. The stories tantalize young listeners with questions about the origins of life on earth and our reasons for being. 

Her legacy continues in her book entitled Spider Secrets: Stories of Spiders that connect creatures and their cultures. Not only do her books and audios spark children’s imaginations, but they also connect listeners to the natural world we often neglect. Not satisfied to leave us only young children’s books, she was working on the YA novel, A Ring of Riddles, described as “vivid . . . pulsing with imagination . . . a mythical coming-of-age adventure.”  

On her website, she tells us of the earliest memories which sparked her sense of wonder. In addition to stories involving the natural world, she claimed to love stories featuring “goodness triumphing over evil and of kindness defeating greed,” which in her words, “gave me courage, hope, and faith in justice.”

Her children inspired her to practice the art of storytelling, and she cites the Spider Grandmother, the Hopi godmother of storytelling, as the inspiration behind her live performances, audio and print storybooks. She discovered a new kind of storytelling called the Adventures of The Garden Children involving the placement of toys and found objects in the garden, then weaving a story around each scene. 

She produced several audio storybooks that feature traditional cultural tales, including Heaven’s a Garden in the Heart and Cloudspinner and The Hungry Serpent for which Sara Buchanan MacLean wrote the original music. Beatrice’s three wishes for her listeners were fostering emotional connections, opening our hearts to nature, and making imaginative connections. She encouraged her audiences to activate their visual abilities, inhabit wonder tales, and find similarities among various cultures’ stories. She recorded five audio storybooks/CDs of world wonder tales with original musical settings and was a Voting Member of the Grammy’s Recording Academy.

Audiences appreciated Beatrice’s weaving of the garden theme throughout her work. She often referred to the family property on Russian Hill that she renamed “Harmony Hill.” She said, “I grew up in this magical garden, hated to leave at age nine, and missed the place ever after. What a joy to come home again, buy the house from my uncle for a song, and raise my two children here beneath a mighty cork oak that my grandmother had planted in her garden just uphill.

“After a party-loving bachelor-renter had let the garden go wild for thirty years, I faced three years of ripping out ivy! Then I began to learn from experts and to plant fragrant woodland perennials and ornamental trees. When the grand dame of English gardening, Rosemary Verey, came to visit, she asked me to write about growing up here. My essay, ‘A Child’s Inheritance,’ is the first chapter in her book, Secret Gardens (Ebury Press, London, 1992).

“When garden writer Joan Hockaday, my neighbor and friend, brought Frank Cabot, founder of The Garden Conservancy, to visit, his word for this garden was ‘luminous.’ On the spot, he enchanted me into joining the Garden Conservancy, and I now sit on its West Coast Council.

Joan featured my garden for March in her book, The Gardens of San Francisco. The garden inspires me every day.” 

Beatrice Bowles performed at Filoli, San Francisco Botanical Garden, Brooklyn Botanical Garden, Marin Art & Garden Center, and countless schools. She spoke at conferences on the arts from Washington, D.C., to Sintra, Portugal. 

Fellow storyteller and WNBA-SF friend, Kate Farrell, attended Beatrice Bowles’ Memorial, November 23, 2021, at the Hall of Flowers in Golden Gate Park with hundreds in attendance. Farrell reports, “The champagne and tea reception was lavish with all the trappings of a British high tea, a tiered service of tea cakes and savory sandwiches. One of the large serving tables featured Bea’s latest book, Spider Grandmother’s Web of Wonders, fancifully decorated by a family member with table centerpiece decor inspired by the book, a blend of floral photographs, myths, and folktales.” 

WNBA readers are encouraged to visit her vibrant website, which captures the spirit of Beatrice Bowles. We mourn her loss yet are grateful for her legacy.

https://www.beatricebowles.com/