Every Farmer Has a Story Meet Sally Bowman and her blue-eyed, chambray shirt farmer. By Betsy Osman S ally Bowman remembers her first day on the job, working at the local grain elevator in Oneida, Illinois. She had been tasked with do- ing bookwork for the facility, and weighing the incoming loads. She recalls looking up from her paperwork and being greeted by a kindly-faced gentleman who introduced himself as Ed Bowman. Ed was warm and gentle, and took an interest in young Sally who was grateful to have a new friend on the job. A few weeks later, Ed brought his son, Lynn, to the grain elevator where he introduced the pair. “I remember the moment we met,” recalls Sally. “He had blue eyes that matched his blue chambray work shirt. He was tall, and kind, and quietly funny, and made me feel instantly at ease. But he moved quickly and was always in a hurry to get back out to the field for another load. I was always happy to see him arrive, and wished he’d visit longer.” As time went on, Sally began to notice the blue-eyed, cham- bray shirt farmer was in less and less of a hurry to get back to his fields, and would instead linger a little longer, often going out of his way to ask her about grain market prices. “My boss took notice of Lynn’s more frequent visits into my office and loved to tease me,” laughs Sally. “In fact it was my boss who convinced Lynn to ask me out for our first date.” He finally asked, and she accepted. “They say when you find the one, you just know," she says. "And I knew from the moment we met.” 10 September 2021 Lynn and Sally Bowman were married one year after their first date. She continued working at the grain elevator until the birth of their son, Andrew. After that, Lynn began to encourage Sally to take a more active role in the family farm. She began running a grain truck to help deliver loads to the very elevator where she and Lynn first met. For Sally, the harvest sea- son was a flurry of activity with meals to prepare, broken equip- ment parts to run for repair, and operational support. In addition to farming, Lynn and his father also sold insurance, a business they conducted from the family farmhouse. “Between supporting the in- surance business and the farm, working side-by-side every day made for a great marriage,” says Sally. “We always knew what the other one was doing that day, and together we met our goals.” Their shared lifestyle also enabled the pair to be great parenting partners, and support their children in daily activities. Whatever he was doing, Lynn would stop work early in the evenings to read to the kids before bedtime. During plant- ing season, he wouldn’t hear of missing the opportunity to see their daughter before she left for prom. During fall harvest, he never missed his son’s football games. While farming came first in their professional lives, the Bowman’s faith and family came before everything else. It was during the summer of 2003 that Lynn first began to experience health issues. “I remember noticing that Lynn was having a hard time making the climb up and down the grain bins,” recalls Sally. “I started to worry maybe it was his heart.” But after going to the doctor, the family was told that a virus had attacked Lynn’s kidneys. He would need a kidney transplant in order to survive. “Up to this point, I had only known him as a big, strong, never-get-sick type of a farm- er,” says Sally. “This was not something we expected, or were prepared for.” Lynn was on the transplant list for a year as his health contin- ued to decline. Dialysis became his only hope. One Sunday, after the family had just returned from church, they were sitting down for lunch and the phone rang. It was the hospital in Peoria saying they had located a kidney for Lynn. “They told us it was a perfect match and the kidney would be coming from Florida. In that moment, we had to drop every- thing and race to the hospital to get Lynn prepped for surgery,” remembers Sally. Lynn had a successful kidney transplant and, while he was never quite as strong as he once was, he was eventually able to get back out and farm. Three short years later, Lynn was diagnosed with Multiple My- eloma, an incurable cancer of the blood that affects plasma cells. Chemotherapy was administered right away, which resulted in the devastating loss of his transplant- ed kidney. Sally oversaw Lynn’s home dialysis for over a year, re- quiring much medical equipment and upkeep. But despite the pain and discomfort, it was missing out on farm life that proved the most challenging. “The hardest part for him was having to sit inside and watch as the farming operation continued without him,” recalls Sally. “Our whole marriage involved Lynn and I working side-by-side. Every harvest was spent working and then celebrating together as a family. It just didn’t feel right without him.” Lynn battled cancer and continued dialysis for nine years until his death. And despite the Lynn and Sally, working side-by-side at harvest time
