For the Bowersock Family, A Final Chapter

For the Bowersock Family, A Final Chapter

By Vicky Moon

On Thursday evening December 2, 2021 a disturbing e-mail arrived in some Middleburg in-boxes. The subject line read: The Deed is Done. Then came the following:

If you are reading this the deed is done!

I decided it was time to join Carol. I hope you will understand that It was not a decision made in haste but one that I have thought about for several years now. Although my general health is still remarkably good for someone who has smoked for 65 years, my back scoliosis has caused me to loose 7 inches in height. In 1989 I went to both OHSU and Salem Spine

Specialists who tried several procedures to reduce the pain. Unfortunately none were successful.

As a result of this I had to give up 99.9 percent of everything I enjoyed doing! I can still drive a car (of course when I get somewhere I can't stand or walk without severe pain) and I can watch TV. If you want a definition of boredom - that is it. And frankly, that is why I truly hope you will understand. Although the expression is "Bored out of one's mind" my mind is still remarkably good for a 78 year old.

I have chosen to use the same exit procedure that Carol used. Have asked my fabulous nephew, Justin Bowersock, to send this out to you in the hope that you will understand. Be assured I will put in a good word when your time comes.

Frances and Carol Bowersock enjoyed every moment.

Photo courtesy

The jarring e-mail was signed by Frances Bowersock. Everyone in Middleburg who had the privilege to know her and her late twin sister, Carol, was terribly saddened by this news. But many of their old friends and neighbors surely were smiling, as well. To know the twins also was to have many side-splitting memories of their countless exploits.

“They were a hoot,” said long-time friend as well as a tennis and golf partner Betsy Allen Davis, the former mayor of Middleburg. She laughed when she recalled the day the twins, long-time volunteer members of the Middleburg Rescue Squad, transported a black snake in their ambulance and brought it in to a local hospital emergency room.

What follows is adapted from my book, Middleburg Mystique: A Peek Inside the Gates of Middleburg, Virginia, published in 2001:

Carol Bowersock, mayor of Middleburg from 1992-96, walks over from her home one block over on Marshall Street. She has her prized dog, P. Zechariah, a Welsh Corgi, in tow. “That’s his registered name,” she says, adding, “That way we can call him Prozac for short.”

The Bowersock twins were devoted volunteers with the Middleburg Rescue Squad, including duty in early June at the Upperville Horse Show in case of any injuries.

Photo © by Vicky Moon

For years, Bowersock and her twin sister Frances, both 50ish, shared a house they called “Headquarters.” They ran errands for clients. In the garage, their close friend Markey Love operated an elegant floral business focused on weddings and parties in big white tents and things like that. Not to complicate matters too much here, but Markey’s sister, Allie Love, was formerly the town manager.

But back to the Bowersocks. Before moving out to Oregon, their main mission in life was with the Middleburg Rescue Squad. They were volunteers for 20 years. Night and day they jumped in an ambulance to assist with a horse-riding accident, kidney stone attack or even labor pains.

The call of their life came through when their parents, the esteemed Justin and Betty Bruce Bowersock, made their final exit by committing suicide together. (But much more on that later.)

Miss Bowersock and Prozac greet Sally Godfrey and Stella (as in A Street Car Named Desire, I am told). The dogs sniff each other while their owners chat. Ms. Godfrey runs a flower service called Centerpiece from her home/office across the street from the Bowersocks.

She does essentially the same thing that Markey Love does, but everyone is friendly and there are more than enough parties for the four florists in this town, which by the way is four blocks long. (Maybe five if you want to stretch it.) Customers arrive in a variety of vehicles and the SUV is definitely the car du jour. A vanity license plate is optional but one proud citizen displays the “20118” zip code. And on the hood of many cars, a colorful hood ornament, a fox or favorite dog or other animal--everything from a goat to a pig. Cost of these adornments range from $45-300.

These books were standard reference for members of the family.

Photo © by Vicky Moon

Dinner at The Cottonwood Café in the aptly named Sisters, Oregon with Frances Bowersock (far left) and Carol Bowersock on the right in pink.

Photo courtesy

Frances Bowersock used to follow the Corgi contingent in the Middleburg Christmas Parade to “Pick Up Poop.”

Photo © by Vicky Moon

In April, 1990, Justin DeWitt Bowersock III, a retired Washington banker, and his wife, Betty Bruce Van Antwerp Bowersock, made a final exit that stunned most of the locals. The Bowersocks, both 82 and married for 60 years, were vibrant members of the community. Some did not and do not realize they had lost two sons: Justin D. IV, their oldest son, was killed in a vehicle accident at the age of 16 in 1949. The second son, Chiles, religion editor of the Baltimore News- American, died of cancer at the age of 35 in 1972.

But their vivacious twin daughters, Frances and Carol, volunteers for the Middleburg Rescue Squad, discovered their parents at their 143-acre Rock Hill Farm near The Plains. The Bowersocks had been 20-year members of the Hemlock Society, an organization that believes in the personal choice of suicide. They ended their lives with a lethal cocktail of Seconal, Darvocet and vodka martinis. When the Bowersocks seemingly felt the quality of their lives was faltering, they made plans to “call it a day.”

Three months prior to their demise, Justin Bowersock had a series of small strokes. Then a mishap at home left him in bed with a bad back. Betty Bowersock was suffering from emphysema and was overwrought about having to give up her regular tennis game. Bank accounts and real estate had already been put in the twins’ names. Everything was detailed, including a notebook with extensive commentary on their final wishes...cremation and no memorial service.

“People were incredibly supportive,” Carol Bowersock, [who made her Final Exit in November, 2019] said at the time. “There’s a real sense of community about Middleburg. it involves not just the town residents but people who live all around here. It’s not a place, it’s a feeling.” And when all the Bowersocks’ wishes were carried out and their farm was sold, the new owner was none other than airline executive Stephen M. Wolf and his wife, Delores. (But, that’s a story for another time.)