Bowie, Roland

From GWUEncyc

Staff

The following was written in 1976:

Mr. Roland Bowie has retired after working for more than half a century for the George Washington University Medical Center. Known to fifty-one classes of medical alumni as "Doctor" Bowie or "Dean" Bowie, this veritable institution-of-a-man was honored at a party given by the University. At that time, Mr. Bowie was presented with a beribboned scroll signed by hundreds of his numerous friends and with a parting present from the Medical Center staff and the Medical Alumni Association-an airplane ticket to California, where he will visit one of his daughters before settling down to retirement in D.C.

Dr. Frank N. Miller, a member of the Class of 1948, and Professor and Acting Chairman of the Department of Pathology at G W, gave a very human tribute to the man who was known to so many medical students and staff for over fifty-one years.

"In the spring of 1925, the sleepy southern town of Washington, D.C., was excited mainly about the inauguration of Calvin Coolidge as President and the prospects of the world-champion Washington Senators Baseball Team winning a second straight American League Pennant. Little notice was taken when Dr. Joseph Roe, Professor of Biochemistry, brought a teenager to the GWU School of Medicine to work in that department's laboratory stock room for $9.00 a week and three meals a day in the hospital's cafeteria.

"Since that time, Washington has grown into a great world capital, nine U.S. presidents have taken office and the Senators team has left the city twice. That teenager grew into a man and has remained at GW for fifty-one years. Now he, too, is leaving, and with his parting the last link to a past era in the history of the Medical Center is broken.

"After fifty-one years of dedicated service, the retirement of Mr. Roland Bowie leaves a generation gap. Nearly 20 years of working at GW separate him from the employee with the next longest period of service.

"There have been seven Deans and Vice Presidents of the Medical Center and four Presidents of the University during his tenure.

"Mr. Bowie became foreman of the maintenance crew in 1930 at the even-then old medical school on H Street. In addition to supervising others, his duties included embalming bodies for anatomy dissection and caring for the cadaver pit, running the messenger service, showing slides or movies at lectures, modeling for fractures and other calamities for the First Aid and Disaster Medicine courses, mimeographing, serving as night watchman, attending the parking lot and operating the infamous, antiquated Otis elevator. Once, when nine nurses and Bowie were aboard the elevator, it fell to the basement level. Like a submarine captain, he directed the nurses' escape through a door in the boiler room.

"My first encounter with Mr. Bowie was in that elevator while I was working for the Department of Pathology as a second-year student. He caught me riding up with some of the doctors to the fourth floor and informed me in no uncertain terms that students were not allowed to ride in the elevator. However, he did permit me to ride while I was working for the department, and we have been good friends now for about thirty years.

"Many incidents occurred during his forty years as foreman of the maintenance crew. He tells of two famous crap games, from which he was momentarily absent when the players were interrupted by a Dean. Dr. Daniel Borden had Bowie remove the door to the seniors' room after that first incident; Dr. Walter Bloedorn kept the dice he confiscated from the second one.

"About 1945," Dr. Miller continued, "Mr. Bowie delivered a baby in the back of a Diamond Cab outside of the old hospital. He was the only person to keep his cool while the cab driver and some nurses became frantic. Sometime in 1950 he splinted the leg of a workman who was injured across the street from the medical school while the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church was being built.

"For each five years of service, Mr. Bowie added a new star to his uniform; he became a five-star, then a six-star, and even a seven-star general-outranking the military dignitaries who came to the medical school for opening day ceremonies.

"In 1970 Mr. Bowie became Supervisor of the Mail Room at the medical school, and it is in that position that he is ending his long and distinguished career.

"'Dean' Roland Bowie has hundreds of friends among the alumni of the medical school; to them, he became one of the three great "B's"- (Ms. Catherine) Breen, Bloedorn and Bowie. In 1972 he was honored by the Alumni Association and presented with a George Washington University chair. In 1975 he received a 50-year Recognition Award from the University.

"Today we honor Mr. Bowie on his retirement with a joy tinged with sadness. We are happy that he will be enjoying a well-deserved rest. However, his warm, shy smile and cheerful good humor will be sorely missed. There will be the wrench of a break with the past of the medical school. The loss of Mr. Roland Bowie will create a void that is unfillable.

"We wish him good health and a long, happy retirement. We also ask him not to forget us, but to come back often to visit his many friends at the Medical Center and the University."

Document Information

Images: 0
Photographic Credit: n/a
Author or Source: GW Medicine, Summer 1976
Document Location: University Archives
Date Added to Encyclopedia: December 21, 2006
Prepared by: Lyle Slovick, Assistant University Archivist

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