This story is taken from “Orphan Train Riders: Their Own Stories,” Volume 6
August Bowers, born August 1, 1865, was about eight years old when he came to the U.S. from Germany with his mother, stepfather, and sister. The German spelling of the name, Bauer, meant farmer. His mother contracted smallpox and was put into a penthouse, where she died.
August soon was nicknamed Gus. Gus was on the streets at the age of eight and talked about scavenging for food out of the gutter. He was appren-ticed to a tailor at an early age.
At some point in time Gus was sent west with a group of children from the Children’s Aid Society on one of the Orphan Trains. He was taken by a family by the name of Turner from Glasgow, Missouri, in 1878 at age 13. The Turners farmed near Glasgow; the farm is still in the family. Gus learned to swim in the Missouri River.
A hard working young man, Gus worked for a widow who lived nearby. He left there when the wid-ow wanted to split a nickel, but he married her daugh-ter in the early 1880s. They were the parents of two children, Willard Turner Bowers, born in 1893, and Allie Mae Bowers, born in 1894.
Gus was a successful farmer and purchased 353 acres of farm land. In 1916 the Bowers family built a modern home, complete with an electric generator, steam heat with radiators and a bathroom.
