About the Author

David Bowles, a native of Austin, Texas, lives in San Antonio with his best friend and constant companion Lulubelle, a yellow Lab.

David grew up reading about history and touring the many museums, libraries, and state buildings of Austin. He enjoyed history and Vocational Agriculture to the detriment of his other studies, and he won many awards for animals he raised and exhibited for 4H and Future Farmers of America.

After high school and a stint in the US Navy, he went to work for a wine and liquor distributor in San Antonio, Texas, later receiving a promotion that moved him to Dallas. After a 23-year career with the company, he returned to San Antonio in 1990 to establish dabow-inc®, a business that processed returned checks for merchants and financial institutions. He later added credit cards and ATM machines to the products and services for brick-and-mortar companies, home-based businesses, and online merchants. By 1994 the company had grown to 20 employees.

David has always been active in community affairs, serving on numerous boards and commissions. A founding member and past president of The Business Crime Council of South Texas, a business group organized to reduce crime in South Texas, he also served as one of the first civilians on the San Antonio Police Review Board. A member of numerous business organizations, David speaks on crime prevention and conducts seminars on check and credit card fraud.

He was selected Business Leader of the year in 1994 by his peers at the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce and was appointed by Congressman Lamar Smith to the White House Conference on Small Business in 1995.

He loved to take vacations on his Gold Wing Touring Motorcycle; in July of 1997 David packed a backpack and a sleeping bag and headed north with no itinerary. The trip ended at Lake Louise in British Columbia, and he had many great adventures on the open road — including one with a bear in Rainier National Park.

In October 1998, a motorcycle accident changed his life. Always interested in history and genealogy, he had been researching his family history. After his close call with death, he wanted to ensure that the family history was passed down to his son, daughter, and three grandchildren. With time on his hands during his three-year recovery from the accident, he replaced his motorcycle-riding hobby with a new avocation: writing stories of his family. He found more time to write when his daughter, who has been diabetic since childhood, underwent a pancreas transplant. He carried his laptop to the hospital and typed his stories sitting in the lobby waiting through her surgery.

To make these stories as exciting to his readers as the stories told by the previous generations of his family were to him, he created dialogue and scenes to fill in the gaps in history. While remaining faithful to known facts, he began writing fiction to add true life drama to the stories that would become The Westward Sagas, tales from colonial days to the settlement of the West. The first book in the series, Spring House, is now available, and David is working on Book 2: Adam's Daughters.

The genealogist and tale-spinner enjoys sharing what he learned from his research for the book and speaks to schools, churches, and other organizations on topics relating to the Revolutionary War and family history. Specific topics include The Role of Churches in the American Revolution, Women in the Revolutionary War, Farming during Revolutionary Times, and Turning Point of the Revolution: The Battle of Guilford Courthouse. David also gives presentations about researching and preserving family history.

Biographical Sketch of David Bowles