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Even her businesses were family affairs

By CRAIG PITTMAN, Times Staff Writer
Published October 24, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT [Family photo] Anna "Tiny" Bowen, 63, died Saturday of pancreatic cancer.

Her dad called her Tiny because she was such a little thing.

She was the youngest of three children, born in 1944 in a Virginia mining town that was close to nothing but the ground. Her parents, Addie and Addis Smith, soon moved the family to Ohio. Her dad drove a bus and later opened his own gas station. Her mom worked the meat counter at a grocery store.

In 1964, when she was working as a secretary at Dayton Press, she walked past some guys in the packing and shipping department. One of them, Lewis Bowen Jr., told his friends, "That's who I'm going to marry."

He took her on a date on Halloween. Five months later, his prediction came true. The bride stood 5 feet 6 but weighed just 90 pounds.

Lewis had grown up in Florida and by 1979 he was ready to chuck the frozen Midwest and come back. He and his wife moved to Holiday and started a carpet-cleaning business. They called it B&B, as in Bowen & Bowen.

By then, the couple had two kids, a girl named Kim and a boy named Lewis III. To say the family was tightly knit would be an understatement.

"I remember growing up in a bowling alley," Kim Teppo said Tuesday. "They were always going bowling. They only did stuff together - bowling, camping, vacationing in Myrtle Beach." They also loved going boating on Lake Tarpon, she said.

When the family opened a furniture store, Kim ran it with her mom. When they closed the store, Kim and her mom took classes together to become certified nursing assistants. When they graduated, both of them got jobs at the same Palm Harbor nursing home.

"My mom was my best friend," her daughter said.

When her children had children, they called her "Granny Tiny." She would play volleyball in the pool with them. Sometimes she took them to A.L. Anderson Park in Tarpon Springs to explore the nature trails.

She had other interests too, pottery, for instance. And she found a new job, working for her daughter's business doing medical transcriptions.

In May, she got some bad news. Pancreatic cancer, the doctor said. She went fast.

Anna "Tiny" Bowen died Saturday. She was 63.

On Thursday afternoon, her husband, her two children, her six grandchildren and all her friends will gather for the memorial service at Anderson Park. They will meet at Shelter No. 3. It sits on a hill overlooking Lake Tarpon.

They decided not to hold the memorial service at a funeral home "because that's not the kind of person she was," said her daughter-in-law, Jessica Bowen. "She wouldn't have wanted us all sitting in a funeral home crying. She would've wanted us to celebrate her life."

Times staff researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this story.

Anna 'Tiny'Bowen

Born: March 24, 1944.

Died: Oct. 20, 2007.

Survivors: husband, Lewis Bowen Jr.; son, Lewis III, and daughter, Kim Teppo; six grandchildren.

Memorial service: Thursday, 4-6 p.m., at Shelter No. 3, A.L. Anderson Park, Tarpon Springs. Dress is casual.

[Last modified October 23, 2007, 21:52:42]