Eleanor H. Bowman, 81, Was Singer, Vocal Coach

Eleanor Hempstone Bowman, pianist, singer, teacher and historian, died of sepsis and pulmonary complications on March 24. She was 81. She and her late husband, Col. John W. Bowman, were residents of Bethesda, Md., and Vineyard Haven.

Mrs. Bowman was born in Shanghai and grew up in Washington, D.C., Newport, R.I., Coronado, Calif., and Annapolis, Md. The daughter of Capt. Smith Hempstone and the former Elizabeth Noyes Thompson, she was born while her father was on duty in China with the U.S. Navy. When she was four years old, the family returned to Washington, where the Noyes family were part owners of the Washington Evening Star.

During her childhood, Mrs. Bowman enjoyed all the privileges of Washington society: tennis, horseback riding, debutante balls and family dinners at the Chevy Chase Club. But her real passion always remained opera and music. Gifted with a fine lyric soprano and a keen ear for languages, she was also a classically trained pianist. While attending Holton-Arms School and later Miss Porter's School of Farmington, Conn., from which she was graduated in 1942, she dreamed of pursuing a career in opera. However, romance and World War II changed her world and her plans dramatically.

While visiting her family, then stationed at the Naval Academy, she met a dark-haired, handsome midshipman named John Webster Bowman of Sikeston, Mo. Their courtship blossomed, and under the gathering clouds of 1941 they became engaged. Following their marriage, she accompanied him to California, and then returned to Sikeston for the birth of their first child, John Jr., and then on to her parents' home in Washington. At the conclusion of the war and after her husband's safe return, they moved to 5206 Wilson Lane in Bethesda, Md., where they celebrated the birth of a daughter, Ellen, and another son, William.

While her husband pursued his career in the Marine Corps, Mrs. Bowman launched her own professional life as a music teacher and vocal coach. She instructed a whole generation of local pianists and singers, including the neighborhood mailman. During the family's three-year sojourn in Hawaii, she expanded her knowledge of foreign languages to include a grounding in Hawaiian and the music of the Pacific. She was also soprano soloist with the St. Andrew's Cathedral Choir, and fulfilled a lifelong dream when she performed the lead in Aida with The Opera Guild of Honolulu.

After retiring from the Marine Corps, Mr. Bowman became chief engineer for WMAL, the broadcast wing of the Evening Star media conglomerate, and Mrs. Bowman continued her choral and religious singing.

For many years she soloed in Washington at Calvary Methodist Church and then at River Road Presbyterian Church. At Calvary, where the music director was the legendary Louis Potter, she became part of a quartet of well-known local singers: Frank Abeel, Howard Clayton and Doris Low, who performed together for many years. She also taught music to city schoolchildren through a program organized by the Junior League. And she returned to higher education, attending George Washington University, where she received an associate of arts degree. On the side, she bred and raised several generations of American Kennel Club chocolate labradors.

During the 1970s and 1980s, she was also able to finish a long-term scholarly project, finalizing the family genealogies. The Hempstones, her father's side, had resided in Maryland since the 18th century. And the Noyeses, her mother's line, had moved from Maine to Washington just before the Civil War. Her great-grandfather, Crosby Stuart Noyes, a journalist, was an early editor of The Star.

Her husband succumbed to cancer in 1987.

Though Mrs. Bowman's health had declined over the last several years, she still was able to enjoy listening to opera and Hawaiian music, teaching Hawaiian to her nurses, indulging a guilty fondness for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and dictating her memoirs to her son, William.

She is survived by her three children, John Bowman of McLean Va., Ellen Bowman Perman of Bethesda, Md., and William Bowman of New Orleans, La. She is also survived by her sister, Mary Dora English of Del Ray Beach, Fla., her brother, Smith Hempstone Jr. of Bethesda, Md., and four grandchildren.

Mrs. Bowman was interred April 17 at Arlington National Cemetery next to her husband.

Those wishing to express their appreciation for the life of Mrs. Bowman are asked to make donations to the Noyes Children's Library, P.O. Box 31, Kensington, MD 20895, or to the Scholarship Fund, Miss Porter's School, 60 Main street, Farmington, CT 06032.