Trudy Lucy Bowman
April 2, 1928-Nov. 18, 2023
Palo Alto, California
Long-time Palo Alto resident Trudy Bowman died peacefully in her home on November 18, 2023, at the “living past 90 is so unnecessary” age of 95 years. Born Gertrude Lucy Keller in 1928 in Timisoara, Romania (formerly the Austria-Hungarian Empire) to Jansci and Vera Keller, Trudy was the younger of two daughters. Her early childhood was easy and typical of upper middle-class European Jewish life: she attended school at a Jewish elementary school and weekly services at synagogue, and although her family were Hungarian-speaking Jews, her first language was German, taught by a governess. By the time Trudy was twelve and her sister Marion was fifteen, they spoke Hungarian and German and had conversational fluency in French and Romanian as well.
Because of the rising levels of anti-semitism in Nazi Germany before the outbreak of World War II, Trudy’s father had applied for visas from several countries, including the United States. In 1940, just in the nick of time, New Zealand accepted their application, and the Keller family emigrated to Wellington. Trudy’s mother Vera knew English, so she spent the six weeks of their trip teaching family members to speak English, the language of their new country.
New Zealand granted the Keller family’s visa primarily because Jansci worked in the textile industry in Romania, and he brought four old knitting machines so he could establish his own business in Wellington. John, as he was now called, modernized the machines and worked with a designer to create “sweater sets,” very popular with women in the 1940s, which he then manufactured in his new factory. Because New Zealand was known for its wool, his business worked out very well for him. The family settled safely and comfortably into their new lives in New Zealand.
One of Trudy’s new friends was Soni, a Jewish girl who had immigrated to New Zealand from Germany a year earlier. They met at Wellington Girls College, and Trudy said the two of them were mischief from the start. Trudy and Soni became life-long friends despite the vast physical distance that marked the rest of their lives, and their friendship created close relationships that have now spanned generations.
All of her life, Trudy loved babies and children, and she babysat first for neighborhood families back in Romania and then for families in Wellington. After Trudy graduated from high school, she trained for two years to be a “Karitane” baby nurse at a Plunket Society teaching hospital, so named for the town where the pioneering program of infant and post-natal care was established. At the time, the Plunket Society offered a certificated nursing program and is now New Zealand's largest provider of support services for children and families. For her on-the-job training, Trudy lived on the hospital premises and worked any and all of three shifts caring for newborn babies and providing breastfeeding support to their mothers. After her training, she was hired by families to stay with them for several weeks to care for both babies and mothers.
In 1948, Trudy took her Karitane nursing skills to Israel, where she lived in a kibbutz-like community at first, caring for babies during the day and refining her Hebrew at a language “ulpan” at night, and then later living with her distantly related but very close cousins in Jerusalem and Haifa.
Back in 1944, Trudy’s sister Marion had married a Marine from San Jose and in 1946 had traveled to her new husband and his family in the United States on a “bride ship” with brides from Australia and New Zealand. After the war, Trudy’s parents also emigrated to the United States and settled in the Sunset district of San Francisco, California. They opened a “health food” store called Eat-Rite on Powell Street, which was one of the first of now ubiquitous natural food stores, and in 1950, Trudy left Israel to join her parents in San Francisco. She worked at the family store, and soon met her future husband, Curt Bowman, at a synagogue group for young adults. Curt grew up in Berlin, and as had Trudy’s father, Curt’s father applied for visas from several countries to escape Nazi persecution. Although Curt’s father died before they could emigrate, Curt and his mother were granted visas to Bolivia in 1940. After the war, Curt moved to New York and then eventually San Francisco to take a job at Singer Sewing Machines. He joined a local synagogue, which just happened to be the same one that Trudy and her parents attended. Curt learned to repair sewing machines at his new job, which offered a natural topic of conversation with his soon-to-be father-in-law!
Trudy and Curt married in 1955 and moved to Palo Alto in 1957, buying a house for $12,000 that they would live in for almost seventy years. The first of three sons, Dennis, was born in 1956, followed by twins Peter and Brian in 1959. Trudy wholeheartedly loved being a mother and having a family, and the Bowman house on a cul-de-sac became a hub of first little kid activities and then teenage shenanigans. Trudy became best friends with her next door neighbor, Marge, who later shared with Trudy that the realtor had first checked with Marge and all the residents in the cul-de-sac to make sure they felt comfortable with a Jewish family moving in next door. Since Marge and Trudy’s kids are still good friends today, apparently it was okay! Trudy loved to cook, and even more, she loved to feed people, and her house became famous for being a place where anyone could find something yummy to eat at any time.
Trudy remained close to her sister Marion, who also had three children, and the two families grew up together. They vacationed at Lake Tahoe and the now much extended families continue to celebrate birthdays and holidays together. Trudy also was the primary care-giver for her aging parents, who had eventually sold Eat Rite and moved to Palo Alto. Greenma and Greenpa, as their six grandchildren called them, loved when the family, of which Trudy was now the acknowledged matriarch, got together for Passover, Hanukkah, and everyone’s birthdays. And Trudy cooked (of course she did!) all of the meals for the Greenies, as they eventually became called, for the rest of their lives.
All the way into her late 80s, Trudy traveled extensively, visiting family and friends in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Israel, Romania, England, and many places in the United States. In return, Trudy generously shared her sprawling ranch home in Palo Alto with family and friends who traveled from all around the world to see her. And Trudy had a boundless interest in people’s lives. She always wanted to know what was happening not only with her close family and friends, but also with their friends and families. Trudy completely and effortlessly embraced everyone she met; she loved learning about their interests, their jobs, their friends, and their adventures. And her comfortable home and her generous hospitality were at times a refuge for too many people to count.
Throughout most of her life, Trudy actively volunteered. She “adopted” Jewish Russian immigrants through Hadassah at Temple Beth Am, and she volunteered in the kitchen at the Jewish Community Center and helped distribute meals from the Food Pantry to needy families. She supported many charitable causes: civil rights; women’s rights; Jewish education; native American education; local, state, and national parks; political groups that supported Israel; natural and wildlife conservation efforts; animal humane societies; and public television and radio, to name just a few.
