Sunrise to Sunrise

About the Book

About the Book

In 1913 Vincent Gowen, fresh from university, left Seattle in search of adventure across the Pacific. In 1945, now priest, teacher, husband, father, and published novelist, he returned. Between those years he experienced China - the China of warlords, gunboats and treaty ports on the Yangtze - becoming fluent in Chinese and absorbing its culture. He spent his next 15 years among the Igorot people of the rice-terraced mountains of northern Luzon in the Philippines. Finally, with his family he was imprisoned in a World War II Japanese internment camp that witnessed the devastating Battle of Manila.

In a style that is witty, erudite and often poignant he recounts these years in Sunrise to Sunrise. He sees his place as someone, though neither famous nor scandalous, who endured and was able to observe history as it was being made. These times and places "compressed into one lifetime three distinct epochs: one so primitive as to be haunted by spells and magic; another violently medieval; and a third a 20th Century 'civilization' in which men attained an efficiency in slaughtering one another.... For me these (experiences) made an obscure life profoundly worthwhile."

More than forty years after these memoirs were written, his son and daughter edited his manuscript, added footnotes, maps, an epilogue, and more than forty pages of illustrations, with over hundred photos mostly by the author and never before published. As one reviewer said, this is "a historical and spiritual page turner." Anyone interested in China, the Philippines, World War II, Christian missions overseas, or who just wants a good adventure story should read this book.

About the Author

Born in New Westminster, British Columbia, in 1893, Vincent Herbert Gowen moved to Seattle at age 4 where his father, Dr. Herbert H. Gowen, had become rector of Trinity Episcopal Church. Graduating from the University of Washington at 19, Gowen traveled to China soon after to teach, went back to study at Union Theological Seminary in New York in 1919, then returned to China where he was ordained as an Anglican priest.

He continued there until 1927, a time of growing unrest and the last years of treaty ports and "gunboat diplomacy". He had moved to the Philippines when his first novel, "Sun and Moon," was published. For 15 years he taught and worked among the Igorot people in the rugged northern mountains of Luzon. His illustrated story of the Episcopal Church's mission, "Philippine Kaleidoscope," was published in 1939. Six months after the invasion of the Philippines he was interned with his family in a Japanese prison camp where he later witnessed the destruction of Manila.

After returning to the United States in 1945 Gowen taught at Seattle's Lakeside School. In 1949 he worked full time for the Church on Bainbridge Island where he and his family lived. He supervised construction of St. Barnabas' Church, and served as its vicar until his retirement in 1961.

He remained active, conducting occasional services at St. Barnabas and elsewhere and presiding over weddings and funerals. His weekly class in literature was eagerly attended by Island women. He also tutored students individually. A second novel, "Village by the Yangtze," was published in 1975. Gowen also spent many a happy hour in his rowboat "FOG" named for his wife, Frances Olin Gowen. He succumbed to cancer and died in 1984 at the age of 91.