Early Life
His maternal grandfather, Chester L. Garratt, an attorney by profession, was a hobbyist and researcher in many areas. Garratt gave him his first "rare" coin, a well worn 1893 Columbian half dollar. This would be his first exposure to numismatics.
In 1945–46, his next exposure to numismatics was a friend’s home in which a dozen or more Indian pennies were embedded face-up in a concrete walk near the front door. In 1948, his family moved to Forty Fort, Pennsylvania (about an hour away from Honesdale).
As a 13-year-old high school student, Bowers's interests included reptiles, scouting, short-wave radio, Strombecker kit models of World War II airplanes, and rocks and minerals. During this time Bowers became an interested in the written word. He received Raymond L. Ditmars' Reptiles of North America from his mother as a Christmas gift in 1952. According to Bowers, Ditmars, who was curator of reptiles at the New York Zoological Garden (Bronx Zoo), had a way of making just about anything sound fascinating. From such experiences, Bowers learned the power of the written word and how it can spur one to a great enthusiasm for acquisition.
Read more about this topic: Q. David Bowers
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early and/or life:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“The secret of heaven is kept from age to age. No imprudent, no sociable angel ever dropt an early syllable to answer the longings of saints, the fears of mortals. We should have listened on our knees to any favorite, who, by stricter obedience, had brought his thoughts into parallelism with the celestial currents, and could hint to human ears the scenery and circumstance of the newly parted soul.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“There is something servile in the habit of seeking after a law which we may obey. We may study the laws of matter at and for our convenience, but a successful life knows no law.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)