Lita S. Bowman

Born in 1927 in Puerto Rico to a wealthy coffee and sugar cane plantation owner and his family. Lita's father lost all his assets in the great stock market crash 2 years later. The family left for a better life in New York City in 1936. Lita's Spanish name was "Estrellita", which translates to "Little Star", but when she arrived in New York, she shortened it to "Lita". Because she was optimistic and talkative, she was given the nickname "Sparky". As a teenage girl, she found work at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel, as did several of her brothers and sisters. It was there she was told by actor Wallace Beery to head west and "see the world". Her brother Angel was murdered, so Lita took his I.D. card and joined the Women's Army Corps. After her 2 year stint, she found herself in San Francisco in 1946 and married a rodeo cowboy and cabinet maker named Robert Clifton Anderson. They were to have 2 children, Leslie Ann and Christian. She became a single mother after only 3 years of marriage. Having to find employment, she moved to be closer to her family who was now in Hollywood, California. For a time, Lita and her 5 sisters had a nightclub act called "The Santos Sisters". They performed in the Los Angeles area for several years. She then decided to go to radio broadcasting school to lose her Puerto Rican accent, thereby being able to get a better-paying job. To accomplish this, she enrolled in radio broadcasting school and graduated from the Don Martin School of Broadcasting which was located at Hollywood Boulevard and Cherokee. Upon graduation, she met radio announcer Vance Graham, who then hired her to co-host his Latin music radio show called "Bolero Time" on station KMPC. A job she held for the next 9 years. During this time, she occasionally would broadcast a special report in a mock "society" accent and announce a "Hollywood" gossip show under the stage name "Estelle Stanford". She also modeled for famed glamour photographer Peter Gowland. Her image was seen in numerous calendars and print advertising campaigns. In 1960, she married Hollywood music agent and classical music critic Raymond DeArmond Bowman, to whom she remained married for the next 41 years. Over the next few decades, Lita worked as a sales manager at the May Company Department Store in West Los Angeles and Redondo Beach. Upon retirement, she served as a hostess for cruise liners at San Diego's Embarcadero. In the 1990s, she helped establish the Veteran's Memorial Museum at Balboa Park and later helped found the Women's Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery. She was interviewed for the documentary "To Free a Man to Fight" and had several newspaper articles written about her. Until the last 2 years of her life (when she could no longer walk very well), she enjoyed an active retirement in Palm Springs, California. She passed away peacefully in her sleep at age 95. Her body was donated to the David Geffen School of Medicine at U.C.L.A.