The Watch

{Note from author; featured in the May 17th, 2007 Mystery Newsletter}

The Watch
by Terry Burres


When I first saw the box it was sitting on a shadowy shelf in the very back corner of the antique mall. I was just browsing on one of my rare days off. I was not in a hurry or going anywhere important. I had the time to explore.

It was a smallish gray box. Gingerly I picked it up. It had a weighted feel to it. Opening the lid I found a blue cloth bag tied at the neck with a silver cord. Flickering silver and gold, a pocket watch poured into my hand.

I set the box and bag aside to study the case of the watch. The metal of the case was cool in my palm as if it had not felt the warmth of a human hand for a very long time. Turning it over I pressed the stem and the lid sprung open. The satiny face of the watch had the soft glow from days gone by. I knew that it was something that I had to have. I didn’t get these feelings very often, but when I did I knew should follow them.

This, however, was not my first time in a antique mall so I knew what to do. I slipped the watch back into it’s bag, then into the box. I carried the box as casually as I could to the front of the mall.

The lady at the desk didn’t look up from the romance novel she was reading. I placed the box on the counter and asked the lady how much. She told me five dollars. I pulled out a $5.00 bill and slide it across the counter.


At home I freed the watch. Holding it up to the light from the window I saw something that I had missed. On the inside of the lid I found the faint inscription that read : “RB ~ love always TB.”

“Wow! Those are our initials!!” I muttered. “Honey, come see this. You are not going to believe this.”

As my husband walked into the living room I handed him the watch. He took the watch from me and read the inscription aloud. Laughing, he opened the back panel. Tucked inside was a slip of paper with Tessa Bowman written on it.

My husband was not a curious kind of person, which is a good thing, because I’d always been a cauldron of bubbling curiosity. When my husband handed me that sliver of paper he had to have known that I would do everything in my power to discover the identity of Tessa Bowman. I turned the paper over and over looking at it from all angles, hoping that by some happenstance more information would appear.

Finally I found time to spend on my computer. Time to try to find information on Tessa Bowman. Time to find out about the RB of “RB ~ love always TB” . Were they lovers? Were they husband and wife? I couldn’t stand not knowing. I know myself well enough to know that it would drive me crazy until I knew as much as I could find out.

I started with the newspaper achieves and then expanded my search. I left messages on genealogy boards. For the next three days I tried every avenue that I could think of. I hadn’t gotten a single hit. I was about ready to give up when I went to my storytelling group. If nothing else I could use it as a good story for my group.

I told the story of finding the watch and trying to find the original owner. The members of the group took ‘the ball and ran with it’ just like I thought that they might. After all there is nothing that storytellers like better then a good story and the watch had the makings of a good story. Besides they had researched other people before for their own stories.

By the next afternoon one of my friends, who had some connections that I hadn’t thought of, called. She had found information on Tessa Bowman. She had been a nurse in a neighboring county in Indiana during the 1937 flood. With that little bit I had a place to start searching all over again.

After some searching I found a cousin of Ruben and Tessa. She remembered Tessa. She even remembered the watch. This is what she told me about Tessa’s life.

Tessa Calloway was born in 1903 on a small farm in Indiana near the Ohio boarder. She was the middle child of five children of Mica and Elizabet Calloway and their only girl. She was baptized on the 18th of May in 1913 at the Oak Dell Christian Church. In 1923 Tessa Calloway was working as a nursing student Louisville General Hospital.

Tessa Calloway married Ruben Bowman on the 7th of April in 1926. Tessa gave Ruben the pocket watch for a wedding gift. It became a point of pride for Ruben who would often take it out just show the kids of the family. They always asked to see the inscription.

Tessa and Ruben lived in Indiana near Ruben’s family. After a couple of years they had two children; a girl and then a boy. Her parents and her brothers with their families would make the trip every couple years. Once or twice they made the trip to Tessa’s family home. Tessa was a nurse by this time in the Clark County Memorial Hospital. Ruben was a worker on the railroad. Tessa and Ruben had a good life.

Then in January of 1937 it rained for sixteen days straight. The Ohio River over flowed it’s banks forcing the communities up and down the river to evacuate to higher ground. Tessa was working extra shifts at the hospital because of an outbreak of influenza. Ruben took the children to stay with his parents who had a house in the knobs of Floyd county.

On his way back to town he missed a curve and his car was found the next day in a creek. Ruben had been penned inside the wreck. He had a variety of problem ranging from crushed bones, internal injuries, and exposure. He survived the crash but he would live for the next few years in and out of the hospital. The complications finally took their toll and Ruben died in 1940.

After Ruben’s death Tessa stayed to work that the hospital and raise their children. Tessa’s cousin remembered Tessa being a kind and genteel woman who took great pride in her family and her work with people who needed her. Tessa retired from nursing when she was 70 years old.
Tessa lived in a little house next door to her daughter for another 13 years. One day her daughter walk into her mother house to find Tessa sitting in her rocking chair dead.

I asked Tessa’s cousin if there was anyone who might like the watch. She said that she was the only one left who remembered Ruben or Tessa. She didn’t need the watch all she had to do was to close her eyes to go back to the happy times.