Charles Cowman was a dedicated businessman, prayer warrior, innovative missionary, and one of the founders of the Oriental Missionary Society.
A writer and a champion fund-raiser, his most important role outside of serving his God, was loving and encouraging his wife Lettie Burd Cowman.
The two needed each other and built a profound partnership for the Kingdom of God.
But, he didn’t start there.
God needed to mold him, first.
Charles Cowman as a child
Two notable events marked Charles Cowman’s youth.
The first came during toddlerhood when his family traveled in a covered wagon from Indiana to Iowa and stopped at a friendly farmhouse along the way.
Neither had a memory, but their parents later realized two-year-old Charles and his future wife Lettie, an infant, met that day for the first time. The Cowman family settled a county away and they didn’t see each other for many years.
But the other notable event occurred when, as a broken-hearted nine-year-old boy, Charles knelt at the altar of a simple church.
With the revival deemed a failure by some because only one boy responded to the circuit rider’s call, God proved otherwise.
It took Charles Cowman another 18 years, but he eventually recognized God’s claim on his life. Nothing stopped him after that.
Charles Cowman as a youth
A small farm in Iowa didn’t hold a future in the ambitious Charles’ estimation. When, as a teenager, he met a telegrapher, Charles wanted to learn more.
Like many other young men interested in the latest 1870s technology, Charles spent the summer at the telegraph office.
Cowman practiced hard, won a job, and became known as a “brass pounder,” a telegrapher so fast others had trouble keeping up with him!
Charles Cowman loved the work. At fifteen, he dropped out of school and soon earned a position running a telegraphy office in the town near the Burd’s farm.
A chance meeting with Lettie Burd’s mother brought the two young people together again. They fell in love that 1883 summer. The determined Lettie, who never changed her mind once she made a decision, was only 13.
Charles moved on in the telegraphy world, quickly advancing through the Western Union company ranks. He worked in the Chicago hub and when he returned to claim a bride in 1889, Charles Cowman managed the Glenwood, Colorado office.
An up and coming businessman
Popular in the Colorado mining town, Charles didn’t want to be apart from his bride anymore than necessary.
So, he taught that piano-playing Lettie how to send and transcribe telegrams.
(Since she couldn’t cook, it probably was a better use of her abilities.)
There in the late-19th century western town a mile high, Charles Cowman learned how to talk with rough-hewn men, manage a budget, and negotiate.
When his wife fell ill, Charles asked Western Union management to move him to a lower altitude.
Western Union brought the Cowmans to the Chicago main office where Charles continued winning managerial promotions.
The Cowmans cut a fashionable swath through Chicago society.
Finally, Charles could impress his in-laws by providing his wife with a glamorous life.
The future looked bright.
Who needed the God he had agreed to follow all those years before, anyway?
Well, Charles Cowman needed God.
He just didn’t know it yet.
The Challenge of a Determined Wife
Charles Cowman should have remembered how a determined Lettie Burd stood up to her parents to marry him.
He should have recalled how she took to telegraphy, once she made up her mind to do so.
A beautiful wife and a beautiful apartment in a beautiful part of a busy city fulfilled his dreams.
Attending the opera, going to plays, reading fashionable books–and visiting the Chicago World’s Fair charmed the man who grew up on a small Iowa farm.
He wanted nothing more.
But one day his adored wife came home with a shining face. Her quiet voice told him she’s made another decision.
Charles Cowman felt uneasy. He showed her tickets to the opera.
Lettie refused to go; Jesus beckoned.
“What are you telling me?” Charles demanded. “I have worked all these years to come up to the top, and now you’ll ruin my life? From tonight my life is ruined.”
Religious men weren’t welcome in the industry where he managed 600 telegraphers.
But Lettie had made a commitment.
Her decision would change many people’s lives.
Starting with Charles Cowman.
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God’s plans are greater than man’s aspirations.
Amen to that!
Great! Anxious to read the next posting on Charles Cowman.
There’s so much, it’s hard to know what should come next . . . 🙂