Broadmead Welcomes New Residents, John Griffith & Hazel Bowman-Griffith
About John:
John Griffith grew up in Shenandoah, VA. He graduated from Virginia Polytechnic Institute in 1957 with a B.S. in engineering and received his professional engineer license in 1962.
From 1959 until he retired in 1995, John worked as a consultant to numerous consumer products companies. He provided engineering services in manufacturing development (in equipment, product, process design, and customer implementation). These companies manufactured rayon, pharmaceuticals, glass, and consumer plastics products.
In Lancaster, PA, he met and married Hazel Bowman. When he transferred to a job in the Baltimore area, he found he liked it here and decided to stay.
For work John traveled all over the United States and also in Europe. From 1996 to 2012, he consulted for banks and lending institutions, providing evaluations of products and equipment availability. Also, he served as his community's treasurer from 1999 to 2011.
At home he was busy developing a pond and managing the wildlife of the property and the surrounding area. The Griffiths were visited by most of the birds and animals known to this part of Maryland, from eagles and ospreys to river otters and minks, but luckily no coyotes.
Although they were long-time poodle lovers, John and Hazel transferred their affection to cats. They have been accompanied to Broadmead by one cat.
About Hazel:
Forty years ago, Hazel Bowman-Griffith and her husband, John, built a house on two and a half acres in Cockeysville. The focus of their garden was a half-acre pond. They had an abundance of wildlife, from river otters to eagles. A pair of Canada Geese came back to nest year after year, and Hazel wrote a book about them: Our Incredible Resident Goose.
An interest in birds came naturally to Hazel. She grew up on a poultry farm in Buffalo, NY, and graduated from Buffalo State Teachers College. After finding jobs in several states, she settled in Lancaster PA. Her retired parents moved near her, where they became close to the Amish community because of their shared interest in poultry farming.
In Lancaster, Hazel met John Griffith, and they married in 1962. After one year, John's job brought them to the Baltimore area, and here they stayed. Hazel taught for 38 years in the home economics department at Ridgely Middle School in Lutherville-Timonium, where she also served as chair. She retired in 1991.
Hazel loved to ski, and she and her husband skied in New England, and all over the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. Now, Hazel concentrates on her hobbies—gardening, and crafts, especially knitting and basket making. One of her Christmas projects is knitting hats for "Christmas at Sea," a program of the Seamen's Church Institute, "to warm mariners' hearts and heads"—in her case, thankful New Jersey fishermen.
-- Written by Dosia Laeyendecker
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