By Kelly McElroy with Jay Bower
Growing up in Harvey Cedars in the 1940s and 50s, Jay Bower’s life became inextricably tied to the ocean. The time he spent by the sea at his grandparents’ house, and later, along with his brother, Rich, in his family’s own home on the bay, greatly influenced his future. His childhood experiences on LBI eventually led Bower to the United States Naval Academy where he jump-started a career in the U.S. Navy.
“My grandparents, Fred and Kit Bower came to the Island in the late 1930s,” said Bower. “When they built in 1940 there were only two other houses on the bay from Cumberland Avenue south to roughly Union Avenue. They were [owned by] Ed and Effie Griggs, their son, George, and Sarah Smith. There was no Holly Avenue, and all access roads were cut from the Boulevard to their respective properties on the bay.”
Another house was added to the neighborhood in an unusual way. “During the hurricane of 1944 Dr. and Mrs. Stewarts’ house was picked up from the ocean side of the Boulevard and moved roughly to the southwest corner of Cumberland and Holly Avenues,” Bower explained. “They purchased the lot, and the house had a new address.”
“Initially, my grandparents owned three Boulevard to Bay lots,” continued Bower. “They sold one to Boyd and Becky Morris and one to my father and mother, Holl and Doris Bower. Later in the 1940s the Morris’s, and their daughters, Janet, and Jackie, built next to my grandparents. In the 1950s my parents built on their lot across from the Morris’s at about the same time Holly Avenue was cut through from West Union to West Salem. In short order, during the early 1950s, between Holly Avenue and the Boulevard, Dr. Bernard and Helen Mickle and their daughter, Helen; Bud and Fran Lee and their children, Barbara, and George, and Dr. Earl and Fran Keller with their daughters, Beverly, and Francine, built houses. Already on the ocean side of the Boulevard were Ellis and Jane Wood, Ray and Lenore Holmes, Betty and Bob Green, and the Wahl family. Closely following were Dr. Ed and Eva Magee, with daughter, Eve, and son, Ed, building on the corner of Cumberland and Holly, across the Boulevard from the Coast Guard Station, which is now the LBI Fishing Club. In 1953, my dad purchased three lots on the bay across Holly Avenue from our house. They were deeded into three new parcels and the Heineman’s built next to us on the south side. Ellis and Jane Wood, now with sons Peter and David, built next to us on the north side. That completed the Holly Avenue Gang, occasionally referred to by all of the parents as the South Harvey Cedars Chowder and Marching Society, a name dreamed up at some cocktail party or other. The gang of kids continued well into the 1960s with my brother, Rich, Peter and David Wood, “Weezie”, and Jim Cook’s sons, Tommy and Jimmy, Roger Main, and David Bulman comprising the next group.
In the forties and early fifties, the families who lived on the almost vacant bayfront were remarkably close. “What I remember about Cumberland and Holly Avenues is that we were all like family. “Here is why we were such a close-knit group,” Bower explained. “All the fathers were either professionals or businessmen from the Audubon, Oaklyn, Haddonfield, and Collingswood, New Jersey area. Some of the mothers, including my mother, Doris, Fran Lee, Jane Wood, and Betty Green all graduated from Collingswood High and were sorority sisters there.” As a result, the group was together in both Harvey Cedars and their winter homes. Their friendships were passed down to their children, who competed against each other in various high school sports in the winter and gallivanted the Island together in the summer.
Bower recalls how life on LBI helped to mold their lives. “As kids, we worked on the Island – clamming and selling to Mike’s on the Causeway. One worked as a mate on a fishing boat in Barnegat light, one stocked shelves at the Island Supermarket, as well as other odd jobs. We grew up in so many ways on the Island, and that stood us in good stead in our adult lives. I
even met my wife, Barbara, there in 1959.”
Neighbors were constantly looking out for one another. Bower recalled that after major storms, when boats and belongings were scattered about the Island, people would hang notices in the post office and the general store advertising boats they had found in the hopes that the owners would come pick them up. “If no one showed, it was your boat until the next storm,” Bower joked.
Bower had the unique experience of living on Long Beach Island during World War II when German submarines prowled the Atlantic coast of the United States. Though he was only six years old when the war ended, his memories from those years remain clear. “I was little, but I do remember…” Bower recalled that every home had blackout curtains on its windows that faced the ocean and explained why this was the case, “If there was a background glow coming from the Island, submarines could more clearly see the silhouette of a ship, making it an easy target.” He also recalled the U.S. military lighter-than-air ships, or blimps, from Lakehurst Naval Air Station in Lakehurst, New Jersey that frequented the skies over LBI. “They were nearly constantly overhead on their way offshore to look for submarines.”
He remembers admiring the U.S. Coast Guardsmen as well. “The Coast Guard station had horses at the time that they rode when patrolling the beaches. They were looking for submarines, or any indication that someone was trying to come ashore.”
As a teen, Bower spent much of his free time on the water – boating and racing sailboats out of Surf City Yacht Club. Even then he felt drawn to a career at sea. “I spent a lot of time talking to the Coast Guardsmen when I could,” continued Bower. “At one point I thought I might go into the Coast Guard, but I ended up being appointed to the United States Naval Academy in 1957, graduating in 1961, and the rest is history. Who knew that those days on the bay, gauging breaking seas in Barnegat Inlet and studying the breaking surf would prove so useful years later when maneuvering a 328-foot U.S. Navy landing ship into the rivers and onto the beaches of South Vietnam.”
Bower’s decision to enlist in the Navy in 1956 was a clear result of his childhood experiences in Harvey Cedars. When he retired as a Captain in 1990, it was obvious that LBI’s influence had led him in the right direction.
Growing up in Harvey Cedars, Bower earned his Junior and Senior Lifesaving badges at Small’s bulkhead on the bay. Eventually, he translated those accomplishments into becoming a Water Safety Instructor at the United States Naval Academy and later an instructor to midshipmen at Oregon State University NROTC unit.
In the 1950’s, Bower spent time running Barnegat Inlet on the Griggs’ Sea Dog II, a twenty-nine-foot Jersey Sea Skiff. Occasionally, they took packages of recent newspapers out to the crew on the Barnegat Lightship. A decade or so later, in 1967, while in the Navy and in command of the first of his three commands at sea, when moving ammunition from Danang to the Marines in Dong Ha, Vietnam, he and his crew would drop off U.S. Mail to the USS Sanctuary, a hospital ship stationed off the coast. “…strangely reminiscent of those days off Barnegat Inlet,” mused Bower.
Although his experiences led him away from the Island, a part of Bower will always remain in LBI. He and Barbara continue to visit the place that shaped their lives in many ways and holds so many memories. “When spring grows into early summer we always say, ‘Let’s go back to the Island,’” said Bower. “It may just be for a day, maybe for two days, but just enough to get up there and see the old haunts.”
“There’s nothing like New Jersey beaches, in particular LBI,” agreed Barbara Bower. “Once you get the sand in your toes it never leaves.”
Today, although the physical landscape of Harvey Cedars has changed, for Jay Bower LBI will always represent family and the start of something: a career, a relationship, a life.
