Ex-Deputy’s Star Still Shines in Department

There was a time when Ventura County lawmen wore 10-gallon hats. When deputies wearing jeans, flannel shirts and .38-caliber revolvers at their sides took turns using the county’s two patrol cars to roam flourishing ranchland.

When the biggest scandal to hit these parts was Lucy Hicks, a popular cook and brothel keeper who turned out to be a man.

Howard Bowman was there to see it all.

Bowman, who celebrated his 96th birthday last month, is the oldest retired deputy in the county.

Proudly displayed in a glass showcase in the den of his Ventura home is a still-shiny gold star--Bowman’s first badge, issued in 1937. It bears the number 19.

“Yeah,” said Bowman, staring at the six-pointed symbol of so much past. “I was the 19th deputy in this county--things have changed a bit since then.”

Then, Ventura County was a big oil town. Ventura Avenue, now in a battle against crime and blight, was home to wealthy residents who made money on the slippery black substance percolating underground.

But most county residents made their living off the thriving citrus ranches dominating the county landscape. The biggest ranchers were revered like kings.

Reports of avocado and citrus thefts filled a young deputy’s logbooks. Murders, rapes, gang shootings, drug sales--still decades away.

“I couldn’t be a police officer today,” said Bowman, who still appears remarkably young and carefree despite the wrinkles carving deep creases around his eyes.

“They have so many problems,” he continued. “It’s altogether different. Their job is harder, and people respect them less.”

Bowman started his life on a 200-acre farm in Kansas, helping his dad grow wheat and corn in between picking off jack rabbits with a 16-gauge Harrington and Richardson shotgun. He still owns the weapon, which is next to his badge in the glass case.

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By the age of 5, he could ride a bull and tame a horse. But when wheat crops jumped to the unbelievable price of $2 a bushel, Bowman’s father made a nice profit and decided to leave the farm for California.

On July 4, 1920, the Bowmans settled in the San Joaquin Valley.

After graduating from high school in 1923, young Bowman worked as a meat cutter and grocery delivery boy in San Francisco.

By 1930, the oil business in Ventura County was doing so well, Bowman and his brother moved to Ventura to make their fortune by running a seven-pump gas station, enormous for the time, on Ventura Avenue.

“The oil fields were booming and a lot of men were working out there,” Bowman said. “And they all had cars.”

But Bowman became restless after five years in the gasoline business and looked for a job with a little more excitement--one where he could use his love of travel, knack for hunting and handiness with a gun. He became a junior game warden for the California Department of Fish and Game, earning $100 a month.

A year later, the chance of a hefty pay raise--an extra $10 a month--motivated Bowman to apply for a deputy sheriff’s position.

There was no academy then. No tests to take or rigorous screening interviews. His background with Fish and Game was impressive, so they gave him a gun and a badge.

Training came from hanging out with one of about a dozen more experienced lawmen.

“They put me right into a patrol car with Joe Parr,” said Bowman, recalling his first partner. “And I just kind of learned from him.”

Of the two county patrol cars, only one rolled through the county at any given time--one during the day, the other at night.

Behind the wheel of a shiny black Plymouth, with a red light on the dash and a siren attached to the front bumper, Bowman and his partner visited area ranchers.

He knew them all by first name: Jack. Walter. Cal.

Sometimes they invited him in for a cup of steaming black coffee and they’d talk until the pot was empty. Many calls were just social, a way to get to know the people he served.

But there were business calls, too.

Someone was always making off with a few loads of avocados, a few head of cattle, maybe some prized farming tools.

Inevitably, while sitting on the front steps of an Ojai rancher’s home, a call would crackle over his walkie-talkie radio--a theft or domestic violence was going down on the east side of the county.

Making his apologies, Bowman and his partner would climb into the reliable Plymouth and make the drive, Bowman said.

Without freeways connecting Ojai to Thousand Oaks or the tiny town of Simi Valley (then just a main street dotted with a few stores and nearby homes), it could be a good hour’s drive.

Countless trips were made over the Conejo Grade, a two-lane road in those days. Traversing the county so often meant a single deputy could drive about 100,000 miles a year.

In those early days, Bowman began recording daily calls in a small red journal, a tradition he continued every day he was a deputy.

About 30 journals, one for each year he was a deputy, now fill a bookcase in his home.

Most entries read something like the one from June 30, 1960: “On duty at 6 a.m. Not much excitement. I went to court. Off duty by 6:15 p.m.”

But there were tough times. He was only a month on the job before he learned the uglier side of policing a county.

Responding to a call about a possible suicide, the rookie and his partner searched the orchards of Ojai until they spotted a man hanging from a citrus tree.

“I just remember telling myself, ‘Well, this is it. This is my job so I better get used to it, “ Bowman said.

Stepping up to a nearby box, he used a pocketknife to cut down the stranger who had taken his life.

Soon the young farm boy became used to dealing with death. With few resources in the county, it fell to him to also serve as a deputy coroner, often picking up the bodies he discovered and delivering them to the coroner’s office.

Like many cops, he learned to cope. Except for the children. He never got used to seeing their small lifeless bodies.

“After seeing so many people killed,” Bowman said, “I guess you just get hardened to it. But the kids, that gets under your skin.”

Other cases stand out in Bowman’s razor-sharp memory. From an office chair at home, Bowman can rattle off times, places, and dates for case after case.

His favorite: Lucy Hicks, the woman/man who created a stir among locals.

Hicks was a well-groomed, sophisticated Oxnard cook and brothel owner who charmed the heart of a 32-year-old soldier, Ruben Anderson. The pair married in 1944. Hicks, a statuesque figure with a fondness for silk dresses, was arrested on suspicion of being a prostitute. Bowman was the arresting officer.

Faded news clippings show Bowman, 10-gallon hat on his head, escorting dress-and-hat-clad Hicks to jail.

But during a mandatory physical exam, it was discovered that Hicks was a man. He was charged with fraud for posing as the wife of a military man, which entitled Hicks to government aid checks.

The ensuing trial fascinated locals, who turned out in droves to watch Hicks sentenced to a stint at Leavenworth prison. Later Hicks was given probation--on the condition he stayed out of Ventura County.

Bowman also passionately retells the time Goebel’s Animal Farm erupted in flames in 1940. The Thousand Oaks farm specialized in housing exotic animals for the entertainment industry.

As flames roared down the hill toward the farm, a hail of embers burned the trunk, tail and back of a caged elephant. She went mad, roaring and bucking for freedom, Bowman recalled. Seven frightened Bengal tigers scratched at their cages and howled.

“What could we do?” Bowman asked. “We couldn’t release these animals, they’d go running into the crowd. And there were people all around, houses nearby. We had to protect the people.”

Bowman and another deputy shot the elephant and all seven tigers.

“Nobody wants to hurt animals,” Bowman said, shaking his head at the memory. “But the animals were wild. We didn’t have a choice.”

After being on the job a few years, Bowman became quite an innovator within the department. It was his idea to drop their jeans and flannels for an actual uniform--like the deputies in Los Angeles County wore.

And Bowman, who earned a pilot’s license while a deputy, was the department’s first aviation unit, responsible for flying prisoners in and out of the county and taking to the air to assist with manhunts.

Thirteen-hour days kept Bowman busy. Mary Bowman remembers her husband being called out on assignments at all hours.

In fact, Bowman was in the air helping round up two escaped prisoners the night his wife gave birth to the couple’s daughter.

Of course she would of preferred to have her husband by her side. But she understood.

“Well, they didn’t have that many deputies then,” she said. “So I just didn’t let it bother me. I knew this was his job and this is what he had to do.”

By the time Bowman retired from the department in 1966, then-Capt. Bowman saw plenty of changes, many of which he didn’t like.

The county population soared. But it was more than that. People were becoming more violent. Battery calls were common. The jails fuller. Even murders weren’t so rare anymore.

“I saw a change in the way of life,” Bowman said. “There’s this lack of respect for life now. And a lack of respect for police officers.”

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Still, more than 30 years into his retirement, he can’t completely let go of the department, which today employs about 700 deputies. He still attends the sheriff’s annual barbecue.

He’s an active member of the Retired Deputy Sheriff’s Assn. And every now and then, he’ll pick up the phone and call Sheriff Bob Brooks.

“He’ll just say, ‘I think you’re doing a real good job,’ ” Brooks said. “And it’s great. It’s such a source of encouragement for me because I know he really does have the department’s best interest at heart. If he approves of the job I’m doing, I must be doing all right.”

In January, Brooks honored the seasoned lawman with a certificate for being the oldest retired peace officer in the county.

Even today, when the sheriff talks to new academy graduates about dedication, about what it means to serve the community, he talks about Bowman.

“Here’s a guy who has never lost any enthusiasm for his profession,” Brooks tells the fresh-faced deputies. “He cares about people and he cares about the job. That’s what made a good cop in 1937, and that’s what makes a good cop today.”