Edward L. Rowny
Engineer Memoirs
Lieutenant General Edward L. Rowny
Former Ambassador
Early Years
Q ..
Ambassador Rowny, would you please describe your background and early life?
That is, who your parents were, where and when you were born, and your
growing-up years.
A
I was born on April 3, 1917, in Baltimore. My father migrated from the farm
village of Nagoszevo, 40 kilometers northeast of Warsaw in Poland. He was born
in 1893 and came to this country in 1912. He died two months short of his 98th
birthday. His father, Andrew, born in 1862, lived to be 91. After a healthy life
my grandfather died when he fell off his horse. My father succeeded in his am-
bition of outliving his father.
On one of my father's several trips to his homeland, he found records of his
family,with the same spelling, going back to 1657. Before that time it may have
been spelled Rowne. The name has two meanings, one more flattering than the
other. The more favorable meaning is "straight and true. The less favorable
meaning is " p l a i n "
My mother's parents were from Poland; her father from the Austrian portion, and
her mother from the Prussian portion of divided Poland.
My father, having had only a grade-school education, went to work as a laborer
on the docks in Baltimore. He then
as he put it, to the easier job of
digging ditches for the Baltimore Gas Company. Several years later he went to
Fargo, North Dakota, where he worked on a threshing machine for a year. There
he developed from a 100-pound youth to a strong 200-pound man. When he
returned to Baltimore he went to work as a carpenter in the Sun Shipyard. He also
started going to night school, something he continued to do for 14 years. He
earned a diploma as an architectural draftsman from the Maryland Institute of Arts.
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