Driving to school in the early morning hours and listening to NPR is usually a pretty passive act for me. But on a particular Monday morning when the radio voice said Dr. Otis Bowen...funeral services...Bremen, Indiana...my ears perked up! It is not often that I hear about current events over the radio while driving to work in Indianapolis that give me a blast from the past!

Former governor (the 44th one to be exact - in 1973), Bremen physician Otis Bowen dies

Bowen was born Feb. 26, 1918, in rural northwest Fulton County. He earned his medical degree from Indiana University and, in 1946, moved to Bremen with his first wife, Elizabeth.

Bowen was commissioned as a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army Medical Corps. and was promoted to captain during World War II. After the war, he started a family medical practice in Bremen.

My mom is a Bowen baby! My dad's parents used to hang out socially with the Dr. and Mrs. Bowen... and Dr. Bowen's Bremen home is just down the street from where my parents live! Bremen is a small town, and for some 4,600 residents, a really good town in which to live!