Barbara Bowser, traveler beyond political circles

Barbara Potts Bowser, 73, the wife of former Philadelphia mayoral candidate Charles W. Bowser Sr., died of leukemia Saturday at Lankenau Hospital in Wynnewood.

On Sept. 29, the Bowsers would have celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.

Mrs. Bowser was a West Philadelphia native who graduated from the Philadelphia High School for Girls and received a degree in elementary education from what is now West Chester University, daughter Leslie Bowser Hope said.

Mrs. Bowser taught briefly in a New Jersey public elementary school before she married.

"She had traveled to every continent on the planet," Hope said, "but not Antarctica."

Early on, Mrs. Bowser shared her travels with her husband, but later "she went on her own, with her bridge club," Hope said. She explained her father's reluctance to travel by saying, "He's a Philly guy."

About once a year, Hope said, Mrs. Bowser took trips sponsored by the Center in the Park, a community center in Germantown, "and quite a few of her bridge buddies would go with her."

"She loved Australia and enjoyed traveling to Russia."

Mrs. Bowser's husband, who retired from his legal practice within the last two years, was executive director of the Philadelphia Anti-Poverty Action Committee from 1964 to 1967 and executive director of the Philadelphia Urban Coalition from 1968 to 1975. From 1967 to 1969, in the administration of Mayor James H.J. Tate, he was the city's first African American deputy mayor.

He ran as an independent mayoral candidate in 1975, finishing ahead of Republican Thomas M. Foglietta but losing to Frank L. Rizzo, the Democratic incumbent. In 1979, Bowser was defeated in the Democratic primary by the eventual mayor, William J. Green.

Besides her husband and daughter, Mrs. Bowser is survived by a son, Charles W. Jr., and three grandchildren.

A memorial service will take place at 11 a.m. Monday at Pinn Memorial Baptist Church, 54th Street and Wynnefield Avenue.