A Visit
With The
Bowden
Sisters
[Editor's Note ? The foil owing U
reprinted from the Fayetteville
Observer of Sept 30. The author was
Sally Smith.)
WARSAW ? Guests of Maggie and Nell
Bowden receive a double treat ? de
lightful conversation with two of Warsaw's
most beloved residents and a tour of one of
the town's oldest homes.
Entering the two-story, white-frame
house with dark greea trim on West Hill
Street is iike stepping back in time.
Furnished with antiques that have been
handed down through the family, the
house is a historian's dream. A story waits
behind every heirloom touched; each room
holds a treasured remembrance.
An elm tree, with ivy creeping up its
trunk, stands at the front entrance, and
Maggie said the tree probably has been
there as long as the house, built about 1845
by Went worth Willis Pierce. Local legend
says it was used as a Confederate hospital
to treat soldiers injured during Civil War
skirmishes along the Wilmington to
Weldon Railroad.
In October, Maggie will turn 93 years
old. Nell, 90, and her older sister look and
act years younger. "We don't smoke or
drink, and we retire early," Maggie said.
Waking daily at 6 a.m., they usually go to
bed around 9 p.m.
The two women are charmers, working
hard to make newcomers feel at ease as
they discuss their family home. The
conversation flows easily, with one sister
finishing the other's sentence.
Henry Bowden, the sisters' father and
owner of the Union Seed and Fertilizer
Company in Wilmington, purchased the
house, and in 1905 he built the Warsaw Inn
with 32 rooms and baths on an adjacent
lot. The hotel was later converted into Ave
apartments, and tenants live there today.
The family moved from Warsaw to
Wilmington in 1901, and Nell and Maggie
began their teaching careers in the port
city. The family decided to move back to
their native Warsaw in 1924. By this time,
their father had died, and they lived with
their mother, grandmother, brother and
older sister, Sallie.
The house, a Greek Revival structure, is
? surrounded by a neatly manicured yard.
"We have the best yard men in the
world," Nell said. A man comes once a
week to mow the grass and care for the
yard.
A large magnolia tree dominates the
view from the left side of the screened-in
front porch. It was planted in 1924. about
the time Sallie began the first of several
remodeling efforts on the house.
The front porch, which faces the old
hotel, was enlarged. "Sallie said if she
only lived one day to enjoy it, it would be
worth it," Maggie said.
"And we have truly enjoyed it," Nell
added.
The porch features a ceiling fan and two
Windsor chairs that belonged to their
great-great-grandmother.
After their younger brother, Edward,
married and moved out, the three sisters
lived together in the family home. Sallie
died in 1976.
Sallie, Maggie and Nell never married.
"Honey, our father opposed us marrying,"
Maggie said. "He didn't want us to leave
the family. And we had a happy home."
A central hallway ran from the front to
' the rear of the original house. Sallie
decided to have the hall closed off and
turn the back porch into a sun room with a .
bathroom. Two white columns were added
in the hallway during the remodeling.
a Drass Diny goai sus oy me ironi aoor.
Maggie picked it up. laughed, and told how
the family acquired the unique piece.
When their mother went to town as a
little girl with her father one day, all she
wanted was the goat. "It makes a good
doorstop." Nell said.
At the end of the shortened hallway is a
mahogany desk. "That was our grandfa
ther Daniel Bowden's private desk," Nell
said.
A family proud of their heritage, the
Bowdens have three coats of arms, in
matching wooden frames, hanging in the
hallway ? Bowden, Johnstone and
Worthington.
To the right of the hall is the living room
done in rose and gray and furnished with
Victorian pieces. A piano sits in the
comer, but neither sister plays. "That was
SaiiitX" Nell said. _
Of the many beautiful items in the room,
including brass lamps and several pictures
of relatives, one is treasured more than
any other. Maggie and Nell agreed that
the copy of the Declaration of Indepen
dence on white silk, in a mahogany frame,
was their favorite heirloom.
The Bowdens are descendants of Arthur
Middleton, one of the original document's
signers who were each given a copy of the
document on silk, Nell explained.
Each of the downstairs rooms has a
fireplace with a hand-carved Greek
Revival mantel. On the living room irintel
sits glassware brought from Scotland by a
relative.
Access the hall from the living room, a
sitting room has been converted into a
bedrocm and bath. One of Maggie's
favorite stories concerning her home is
about the trap door discovered in the room
leading to a secret compartment. Sallie
decided to have the chamber tinned and
used it as a closet.
The bedroom suite, including deNk.
bureau and chest, is bird's-eye maple, a
wood no longer prevalent. Nell said.
A plaque hangs on the bedroom wall
recognizing the Bowden sisters ? Maggie,
Nell and Sallie ? for their contribution to
the community. "Our hobby'* Why, doing
for other people." Maggie said. "Anything
we can do, we love to do it."
A glass-panel door leads off the hall to
the narrow stairway, which has a sharp
turn "See that door?" Nell said, pointing
to an outside door at the first landing.
"That was added so they could get a
stretcher up the stairs. It used to be a
window."
When their mother was sick and
confined to an upstairs bedroom, Sallie
had the door added, just in case.
Upstairs are four bedrooms, a large
bath and small porch overlooking the front
yard. The handmade doors have two
vertical panels.
After flipping the light on in the
bathroom, Maggie, who is not supposed to
climb the stairs because of her arthritis,
said, "Isn't it the biggest bathroom you've
ever seen?"
Before allowing the question to be
answered, she changed the subject and
pointed to a chair in the room. "This is my
favorite chair," she said. "It was my
great-grandmother's chair."
Although the sisters spend most of the
time downstairs, all 12 rooms are stea
heated by radiators. Air conditioning coo
the house in the summer, 'v
The green, metal awning covering tl
back entrance is a blessing during a ra
storm, Nell said. The entrance leads i*?o the sun j
room, which was originally the back porch, and is by
far the Bowden sisters' favorite area in the house.
Today the room is a bedroom as well as sitting
room, where the two loci out the windows at the
passing Warsaw traffic.
"Tell about the sun room," Maggie, sitting in a '
rocking chair, instructed her younger sister,
nicknamed Baby Nell.
"This used to be a kindergarten classroom," Nell .
explained. After retiring from teaching in 1960, the
two ran a kindergarten for several years. "We had
about 27 children every year."
From 1924 until 1960, the sisters taught at Warsaw
Elementary School. "I taught first grade, and Nell
had the seeoad," Maggie said.
When the two retired 24 years ago, the school
presented them a sterling silver engraved bowl,
which Nell carried in from the adjacent dining room.
"It matches our flatware," she said.
The dining room, between the sun room and J
kitchen, has silver-gray wallpaper, gray carpet and
mahogany furniture. For the spring and summer,
white and printed cotton covers are placed over the
chairs' red velvet cushions as they were years ago to
tk.
urigiiien mc mum.
The room to the right was once a nursery, Nell
said, but during the remodeling it was coverted into
a kitchen. Maggie prepares breakfast, Nell takes
care of lunch duties, and they usually have
something light for dinner.
On special occasions when the sisters entertain,
they have a cook and butler help prepare and serve '
the meals. "Oh, we-have visitors all the time," Nell
said.
The sisters watch television newscasts as often as
they can, Maggie said, paying particular attention to
political happenings.
Proud to be Democrats, both sisters plan to vote in
November. "We are surely going to vote," Maggie
said.
Newscasts aren't the only programs Maggie
follows on television. "1 like the stories," she said,
"but Nell doesn't care anything about them.
"I like 'The Young And The Restless' and 'As The
World Turns.'" "J
When they are not entertaining in their home, the
sisters get out and visit. Maggie does the driving ?
her license was renewed last year for another
four-year term. Nell stopped driving two years ago,
at the age of 88, because of poor eyesight.
The two sisters can be seen traveling in their gray
1981 Ford Grenada every Sunday to Warsaw
Presbyterian Church, where they are members, or to
Faison for an occasional lunch out.
Living in the heart of Warsaw, with the apartment
tenants next door, a dress shop across the street and
the sound of an approaching train's whistle in the (
air, appeals to the Bowden sisters. "I love it here,"
Maggie said.
Nell agreed with her older sister. "It's always been
hnmp "
A Visit
With The *
Bowden
Sisters <
Maggie (left) and Nell retired 24 years ago from Warsaw Elementary Sehool oewrwr rum. mw w jowwy wew*
Great-great-grandmother'* Windsor chair
The living room (left) i? furnished with antiques and other heirkx
handed down through the Bowden family. The two-siory house, a
former Confederate hospital, is one of the oldest in Warsaw.