When Rosalind first arrived in Wilmington, she put her journalistic talents to work creating A Guide to Cape Fear Leisure, a book giving tourists and newcomers advice about where to go and what to do in Wilmington. It is still in publication, called Wilmington Today.  Rosalind gave credit to Freda Wilkins and Harriette Taylor for helping her in this endeavor. In 1990, Rosalind purchased Encore Magazine which was later sold. She spent time from 1993 to 1995 at UNCW studying accounting and she presently has the Certified Public Accountant designation.  Her first accounting job was at PPD.

     When asked about what television programs she liked, Rosalind said as a young girl she loved horses so she really liked the show called Fury. She also loved the Lassie series as well as the Ed Sullivan Show where she remembered seeing Elvis from the waist up because CBS censored what was going on with Elvis below the waist. She explained that Gone with the Wind was her favorite movie but her mother would not allow her to see it until she was twelve. Rosalind reflected upon these last two revelations by indicating how things have changed in today’s culture. She is also a reader and in a book club which has just recently completed Mao’s Last Dancer.

     Over the past two years she has supervised the building of a new home. She admitted that this was quite a challenge. Her home is lovely so it was time well spent.

     When asked about how she got into the Cape Fear Garden Club, Rosalind explained that as a newcomer to Wilmington, the late Judy Mowbray took her to a meeting and that the people she met in the club gave her reason to join. She served as president from 1985-1987 and gave full credit for the success of her term in office to the committees serving under her. She said the committees were just “humming” along.  Her evidence for this was the fact that she was pregnant with her younger son during this period and gave birth between the October and November meetings that year. She said Beth Cherry topped her the next spring when she was in charge of the Azalea Belles and gave birth to her daughter Elizabeth three days before the tour, with Beth on hand to open the Garden Party as planned. The Garden Tour opening during her second term was at Bob King’s house with Mary Ann Robison as Tour Chairperson. The Garden Tour netted $25,000 that year, the most ever to that point. Rosalind illuminated that when dispensing the Garden Tour money, the committee made sure recipients fully understood the importance of maintaining whatever the Garden Tour money had been used to build.

     Elma Kennedy Porter Bowden was born in Harrells of Sampson County on September 12, 1922 . She graduated from Franklin High School but did not go to college at that time because her mother had recently died.  Elma was one of eleven children, and she was the only girl so she felt obligated to help out at home. Her first husband was visiting his family in Sampson County when she met him. Elma married Mr. Porter in 1942 in February before he had to go overseas in World War II, and they lived at Fort Jackson , S.C. and had a daughter before Charles went to war in Europe . He was in the Normandy Invasion and the Battle of the Bulge but he came back home safely when the war was over. Elma said the war had a big impact on her husband as she remembers him having bad dreams about it and she said he lost a lot of men. She said he never wanted to talk about it, but that she knew it was on his mind.

     She commented that once they went to a party and that her husband abruptly said, “Let’s go home.” She was taken aback because they had not had dinner yet, but she went at his urging. She asked him when they got home why they had to leave, and he said because one other guest had been bragging about how many Germans he had killed which struck Charles as a terribly wrong thing to do. Charles said if he had listened to the other man much longer he was afraid he would hit him. If anything came on TV about the war, he would change channels. Mr. Porter died in 1999 at the age of 77.

     For five years she lived alone, but she was very active in Eastern Star where she got together with Mr. Bowden, a widower and good friend whom both she and her former husband had known for over twenty-five years. He asked her to marry him, she did, and they were together five years when Mr. Bowden died from a staph infection. Mr. Bowden’s son Lloyd, Jr. calls Mrs. Bowden every day and asks her, “How’s my little steppie doing?” She obviously adores this Lloyd as if he were her biological son. She said he hardly ever hangs up without him saying, “I just called to let you know I love you.” Margie Watley, a good friend, encouraged Elma to move into Brightmore Independence after Mr. Bowden died.

     Mrs. Bowden raised her own daughter and was responsible for bringing up two other little girls who were her brother’s children when their mother died 7 years after having the second child. Her brother died of a stroke shortly thereafter. Both grew to be fine women, but both have died.

     Mrs. Bowden was the personnel director of Garver Manufacturing for 22 years.  Then, after Garver Manufacturing closed, she went to Ward’s Funeral home for 10 years and did the training and got the license to be a funeral director though she did not want to learn to embalm. When Mr. Ward died and the funeral home was closed, she went to Andrews where she handled various duties for 16 years. When she retired from there she worked for Coble for a couple of years. She said Mr. Ward taught her to never say to people “I know how you feel” because that is a no, no. Each individual feels differently.

     Jenny Glisson, a nurse at Garver Manufacturing, encouraged Mrs. Bowden to join the Cape Fear Garden Club.  Within five years Mrs. Bowden was approached to be an officer of the club, and she served on committees before becoming an officer. She said she and Jeannine Smith went to the Garden Club National Convention in Dallas , and she remembers going to see the school book depository where President Kennedy was shot. She served as a Garden Club District Director as well. She and Jeannine traveled together a lot. They went through the Marine Base at Camp Lejeune once during maneuvers and were stopped before getting to the road to Morehead City. A marine made them turn around and another told them a bridge was blown out and they couldn’t cross.  When she asked for him to help them, the Marine said, “I can’t ... I have been dead for two days.” When they finally got to the District Meeting late, the ladies there had a good laugh over that one.