Kelly, Eva, 1892-1985

<p>Eva Kelly Bowring (January 9, 1892 – January 8, 1985) was a U.S. Senator from Nebraska. Bowring was born in Nevada, Missouri. In 1928, she married Arthur Bowring. They made their home at the Bowring Ranch near Merriman in Cherry County, Nebraska.</p>

<p>Bowring was active in Republican politics in Nebraska. She was appointed to the United States Senate by Governor Robert B. Crosby to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Dwight Griswold, making her the first woman to represent Nebraska in the Senate. She served from April 16, 1954, to November 7, 1954. Bowring was the fourth of six Senators to serve during the fifteenth Senate term for Nebraska's Class 2 seat, from January 3, 1949 to January 3, 1955.</p>

<p>After her service in the Senate, Bowring continued ranching near Merriman. She served part-time on the Board of Parole of the Department of Justice from 1956 to 1964. She died in 1985, only one day before her 93rd birthday. After her death, Bowring Ranch was donated to the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, becoming Bowring Ranch State Historical Park.</p>

<p>In 1954 Eva Kelly Bowring arrived in the Senate with the vocabulary of a witty cattle wrangler and impressive credentials as a state political figure and prosperous businesswoman. Appointed to fill the vacancy resulting from the death of Senator Dwight Griswold of Nebraska, Bowring had become one of Nebraska’s wealthiest women through her ranching enterprises and was a leading GOP figure in the state. Her transition from riding the range on her sprawling ranch to the U.S. Senate Chamber was abrupt and somewhat unexpected. “I’m going to have to ride the fence a while until I find where the gates are,” Bowring told a reporter shortly after arriving at the Capitol.</p>

<p>Eva Kelly was born on January 9, 1892, in Nevada, Missouri. She attended school in Kansas City, Missouri. In 1911, at age 19, she married Theodore Forester, a grain and feed salesman, and the Foresters settled in Kansas City. When Theodore Forester died in 1924, Eva was left to raise the couple’s three young sons: Frank, Harold, and Donald. To support her family, Eva moved to Lincoln, Nebraska, and took up Theodore’s work selling livestock feed; she drove as many as 40,000 miles a year around rural Nebraska roads in an unreliable old car. Once, near Merriman, Nebraska, the car broke down. A homesteader named Art Bowring happened to be driving by and stopped to help. In 1928 Eva and Bowring, who had served as county commissioner and went on to win election as a representative and senator in the state legislature, married. The family settled on Art Bowring’s ranch, the Barr-99, near Merriman in the Sand Hill Country of Cherry County. The couple expanded their landholdings and eventually managed a prosperous 13,000-acre operation. After Arthur’s death in 1944, Eva Bowring operated the Barr-99, becoming the first woman to chair the Nebraska Stockgrowers Association Brand Committee. In her capacity as a rancher, Bowring became involved with Nebraska Republican politics, eventually serving as the state’s first woman county GOP chair. From 1946 to 1954, Bowring served as vice chair of the Nebraska Republican central committee and as its director of women’s activities.</p>

<p>Bowring’s transition to public office was sudden. Governor Robert B. Crosby appointed Bowring on April 16, 1954, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Senator Dwight Palmer Griswold. Bowring, who described herself as a “forward looking Republican,” refused the offer initially. She was reluctant to leave her 1,200 head of cattle and the calving and branding work that she still enjoyed and actively participated in at age 62. “This is one cross I don’t think I have to bear, Bob,” Bowring told the governor. But Crosby was persuasive. After a private meeting with the governor, Bowring emerged from the office to tell reporters she accepted the appointment. She explained that after years of exhorting GOP women into politics, she could not now reverse course herself, noting that, “when a job is offered to you, take it. Men can refuse but women are increasingly important in political life.” Bowring was sworn in as the first Nebraska woman to serve in Congress on April 26, 1954, for the term that would end, according to state law, at the next general election. In November 1954 a candidate would be selected to finish out the final two months of Griswold’s term, as well as a successor to the full six-year term starting in the 84th Congress (1955–1957). At the time of her appointment, Bowring joined the Senate’s only other woman Member, Margaret Chase Smith of Maine. Smith wrote that Bowring’s appointment “did the women of America as well as the women of Nebraska a great honor.</p>