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Name: BOWERS, Mary Patricia Philomena, Miss

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Nee: sister of Eileen Mary Elizabeth Rawlins (later Hately)

Birth Date: 10.12.1905 Dublin

Death Date: 23.4.1999 Surrey

First Date: 1929

Profession: Education Officer European Educ. in 1939, appointed 1929. Originally an Asst. Mistress 1929

Area: Nairobi

Married: At RAF Kasr el Nil Barracks, Cairo 10.12 1942 Forrest Loudon Megson (1895-1977)

Children: Pénélope Ann Loudon (Deubel) (15.2.1945 Nairobi)

Book Reference: Staff 39, Dominion

School: Dominican Convwnt, Donnybrook, Dublin; MA (NUI) BCom Hons. (NUI)

General Information:

1919-1939 Principal of Govt. Indian Girls' School, Mombasa.
Dominion - Education Department - Assistant Mistress - 1930
Penelope Deubel: Her sister Eileen Rawlins persuaded her to go to Kenya. She took up the post of Head Mistress at the Indian Girls' School in Mombasa. Later she moved to Nakuru Girls' school as House Mistress  and teacher and then to the Kenya Girls' High School  (Nairobi) with the same duties.   She met her future husband (FL Megson) through the Hatelys. 
When WWII broke out Mary (best know as Moyra) Bowers joined the joint organisation of the Red Cross / St. John’s  and travelled up the Nile by boat to Cairo to be stationed at Helmiah hospital for wounded soldiers.  Forrest Loudon Megson was also stationed there in the RAF and she married him in the Chapel of St.Thomas More, RAF  Kasr el Nil Barracks,  on 10.12 1942.  
Moyra" returned to Kenya on a troop ship (SS Mr. Brown, war camouflage name)  in late 1944 or early January 1945 to give birth to their daughter (Penelope Ann Loudon Megson) at the Maia Carberry Hospital in Nairobi on 15.02.1945.  
In 1946  her husband  was demobilised and returned from Cairo…sold his farms and businesses in the Trans Nzoia to settle in Nairobi (Ngong area) where he took up office as CEO of the European Settlement Board….Mrs Megson joined the EAWL and was appointed Hon. Secretary of the Standing Committee on Education - post held for several years.   She was a keen gardener. 
Later, approximately in 1955 “Moyra” Megson agreed to help the Loreto nuns at Valley Road Convent by replacing a maths teacher and taught there for a year or two. When Forrest L Megson retired from all his activities in 1967  they moved to Likoni  where Forrest died on 03.02.1977.   Mrs. Megson decided to leave Kenya and did so in 1980 to live in a very pleasant retirement home in Surrey, England, where two of her friends, Mr. and Mrs. (Margo)  “Jack” Lipscomb were already residents.  She died there on 23.04.1999.

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