Ruth Agnes Bowen

DEER PARK - Ruth Agnes Bowen, 87, of Deer Park, died December 31, 2017, after a long battle with Alzheimer's Disease.

She was born Ruth Inez Chapa-Romanos on July 17, 1930, to Beatriz Romanos and Pedro Chapa in her Uncle Cecilio's house on Grant Street in the historic La Azteca barrio in Laredo.

She married Wayne Lanier Bowen, USMC, on May, 14, 1951, in Cuero. The two had met the previous summer on a train bound from San Antonio to Los Angeles. Ruth, a graduate of Laredo's Martin High School, was going to live with her Aunt Nana in L.A., where she'd find a job in personnel at the May Co. in downtown Los Angeles. Wayne was shipping out to Korea with the 1st Marine Division, where he'd win the Purple Heart at the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea.

Ruth gave birth to five sons -- all born on or near Marine Corps installations in the Carolinas, California and New Jersey.

She was a woman who tried to wring all the beauty and meaning she could out of every second of her life. She was beautiful and had psychic gifts.

Ruth wrote "What Is Love?", a heartfelt and highly entertaining history of her family in La Azteca. "We are all here to take care of each other," she says in it.

She sculpted a perfect Tiki God out of chicken wire and concrete that stood as tall as she was (five foot one) in her front-yard flowerbed in Cypress, California.

She was a quilt artist whose works in fabric presented those she gave them to with the pleasant dilemma of whether to use the comforters to stay warm in bed or to hang them on the wall as art.

She was a sought-after floral designer who created bouquets for NASA astronauts and other customers in the Clear Lake City area where she crafted her arrangements.

Ruth was a collector of Chinese porcelain, NASCAR models, Toby mugs, Hull vases, Depression Glass and other beautiful things.

Survivors

Survivors include sons Wayne Richard Bowen of Houston, Robert Gregory Bowen of Ingleside, Benjamin Leighton Bowen of Deer Park, Norman Patrick Bowen and wife Debra of Friendswood, and Sean Courtney Bowen of Seabrook.

Other survivors include: cousin Rosie Williams of Jamestown, Kentucky; grandchildren Clayton Garrett Bowen of Ingleside; Cameron Lee Bowen of Waxahachie; Summer Lynn Bowen Warren of Colorado Springs, Colo.; Julia Caroline Beatriz Bowen of Buda; Jennifer Michelle Bowen of Friendswood; Daniel Patrick Bowen of Friendswood; Kacey Jo Bowen of Friendswood; Nathan Tanner Bowen of Kinder, La., and Brenna Nicole Bowen of Elton, La.; great-grandchildren Cora Michelle Bowen of Friendswood, Mackenzie Hope Peoples of Elton, La., William Ayden Peoples of Elton, La. and Jace Lee Bowen of Waxahachie.

Ruth was preceded in death by her husband and her mother.

Funeral services will be held at a later date. Burial of her cremated remains will be beside her husband at Hillside Cemetery in Cuero. Freund Funeral Home. (361) 275-2343.