Bowles, Nannie Ruth Collins Hagewood
Nannie Ruth Collins Hagewood [Bowles] (1894-1933) was one of the original 12 students to enroll the first term of the Bible Training School, now Lee University.
Nannie Ruth was age 23, married, and an evangelist and church treasurer at Liverwort Church of God near Southside, Tennessee, when she enrolled at Bible school. Only three months prior she and her husband had buried their 4-year-old daughter who died of malaria fever. Nannie Ruth left the school at the beginning of March 1918 for reasons uncertain, but by 1920 she and her husband, Garner B. Hagewood, were living in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where Nannie Ruth was planting a church.
In 1921, when Nannie Ruth was five months pregnant, her husband died. She remained in New Mexico to minister until after she gave birth to a son, Holland. However, when that child died at age six months, the grieving Nannie Ruth felt her time in New Mexico had come to an end. She returned to Cleveland, Tennessee, in 1922 and found refuge at the Bible school, where she again enrolled as a student. She also ministered in area churches and assisted with a short-term missions trip one summer by accompanying Reverend F. J. Lee and others to the Bahamas. Soon Nannie Ruth was enlisted to assist as a solicitor for the Church of God Orphanage, which had opened in Cleveland in 1920. She and others traveled throughout the United States visiting local churches and receiving offerings for the orphanage.
Following a very brief engagement, she married Frank Bowles of New York in 1926 and promptly relocated to that state, from which location she began to travel and minister extensively in the Northeast. Nannie Ruth and other female ministers formed an evangelistic team preaching and planting churches throughout New England, and she continued to help raise funds for the orphanage.
In 1933, while visiting her sister in Charleston, West Virginia, Nannie Ruth was in the house’s basement doing laundry with her ministry partner Harriett Legg when the furnace exploded. Both were killed instantly. Of this sad event T. S. Payne noted, “While rejoicing in the Lord and their voices rang out in praise to the Lord there was an explosion and Sister Bowles and Legg were convoyed to the paradise of God. There in Tullahoma [where she is buried] stands a monument to one of Tennessee's noblest women, one of the Church of God's most untiring and sacrificing workers.” T. L. McLain affirmed, “She was possessed with the spirit of a hero, was determined in her efforts for God and the winning of souls.”
/ L.F. Morgan
Nannie Ruth was age 23, married, and an evangelist and church treasurer at Liverwort Church of God near Southside, Tennessee, when she enrolled at Bible school. Only three months prior she and her husband had buried their 4-year-old daughter who died of malaria fever. Nannie Ruth left the school at the beginning of March 1918 for reasons uncertain, but by 1920 she and her husband, Garner B. Hagewood, were living in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where Nannie Ruth was planting a church.
In 1921, when Nannie Ruth was five months pregnant, her husband died. She remained in New Mexico to minister until after she gave birth to a son, Holland. However, when that child died at age six months, the grieving Nannie Ruth felt her time in New Mexico had come to an end. She returned to Cleveland, Tennessee, in 1922 and found refuge at the Bible school, where she again enrolled as a student. She also ministered in area churches and assisted with a short-term missions trip one summer by accompanying Reverend F. J. Lee and others to the Bahamas. Soon Nannie Ruth was enlisted to assist as a solicitor for the Church of God Orphanage, which had opened in Cleveland in 1920. She and others traveled throughout the United States visiting local churches and receiving offerings for the orphanage.
Following a very brief engagement, she married Frank Bowles of New York in 1926 and promptly relocated to that state, from which location she began to travel and minister extensively in the Northeast. Nannie Ruth and other female ministers formed an evangelistic team preaching and planting churches throughout New England, and she continued to help raise funds for the orphanage.
In 1933, while visiting her sister in Charleston, West Virginia, Nannie Ruth was in the house’s basement doing laundry with her ministry partner Harriett Legg when the furnace exploded. Both were killed instantly. Of this sad event T. S. Payne noted, “While rejoicing in the Lord and their voices rang out in praise to the Lord there was an explosion and Sister Bowles and Legg were convoyed to the paradise of God. There in Tullahoma [where she is buried] stands a monument to one of Tennessee's noblest women, one of the Church of God's most untiring and sacrificing workers.” T. L. McLain affirmed, “She was possessed with the spirit of a hero, was determined in her efforts for God and the winning of souls.”
/ L.F. Morgan