There are lives and there are lives. This is the story of John Mowder — child of Moundsville, circus worker, brilliant sculptor and artist, bon vivant extraordinaire, and my friend – who died in Pittsburgh Dec. 21, 2024, at age 78.
I got to know John after my PBS film with David Bernabo Moundsville came out in 2019. John messaged me on Facebook and invited me to his house on the border of the Garfield and Bloomfield neighborhoods of Pittsburgh. He was from Moundsville, he explained, and wanted to tell me about his childhood and his life. He lived in a big house packed with art, one very obnoxious dog, and his life partner, John Manear, a high school English teacher. John died in 2022.
John Mowder seemed to live in a party. He held court on his spacious Pittsburgh front porch or in his kitchen decorated like a circus museum, as friends of all types stopped by to talk about their love affairs, money problems, politics, art, small towns, or the weather. John refused to leave his house or make plans. “Just stop by,” he’d write.
Every few months, I did that, and every time, there’d be a fresh pizza, a full pot of coffee, and an ashtray full of cigarettes. “It’s amazing,” he’d say with a twinkle in his eye. “I’m a gay man who lived through the 80s and didn’t get AIDS, I love coffee and cigarettes, and I never go to the doctor.” I never saw John eat anything other than pizza or drink anything other than coffee.
After a couple hours of chewing the fat, I’d leave reeking of cigarettes. That was the price of admission for hearing stories about taking care of elephants, traveling with a circus in the 1960s, painting, sculpture, trapeze artists, and, always, Moundsville.
That’s really what John wanted to talk about with me. He loved his town. It had given him community, warmth, friendship, life. It had shaped him, given him a theatre in which he could act out his hustling, alive personality.
“I made friends with the prisoners who maintained the grounds of the warden’s mansion,” he wrote in the draft of a memoir he shared with me. “In the early spring, before they bloomed, the prisoners filled grocery bag of tender dandelion greens. I sold the popular spring tonic door to door. I was careful not to sell to housewives who might talk amongst themselves. It would be impossible for a nine year old kid to dig that many dandelion seeds.”
Of course, he had to leave, after he discovered he was gay as a teenager. He needed to be on the road, or in bigger places. He went to college at Glenville State, and then earned an MFA from West Virginia University. He taught junior high art and art appreciation classes for steelworkers and juveniles at a detention center. In 1972, he joined Eastern Airlines as a flight attendant. He loved getting the Moundville Echo, he told me, and he made sure it was available on the airplane. “The New Yorkers in first class preferred the Echo to the Times,” he bragged. He kept up with his beloved hometown.
John had another career: The circus. In the days of traveling circuses and carnivals driving and training from town to town, Americans loved walking from their front doors to see live entertainment. John operated carnival attractions, including a funhouse, rides and concession stands. For the circus, he worked several jobs, including ringmaster and elephant trainer. He painted signs, carousel horses, murals, banners, and trucks.
In Pittsburgh, where he moved some 40 years ago, his life revolved around his love of John, his art, and his friends.
Always, our conversations came back to Moundsville. John couldn’t go back, but he missed it. He got the Echo for 60 years, almost without ever missing an issue. He painted a series of murals of his childhood, depicting a vanished small-town America of ice cream parlors, packed main streets, and drive-in movies. He painted the Grave Creek burial mound and the West Virginia State penitentiary.
It was in Moundsville that John learned as a child how to be happy, and he was, in fact, one of the happiest people I’ve ever met, fully alive because he was fully himself. “I live in the best neighborhood in the most livable city in America,” he’d tell me.
When he messaged me a few weeks ago to say he was dying, he put it in his clever, joyous, original style:
“I’m not worried about you,” I wrote back. “You’re a good man and a good soul.”
I knew John for less than a half-dozen years toward the end of a full life, but you don’t worry about somebody who loved so many things, and so many people, so deeply.
John W. Miller
A beautiful tribute, John. May we all live with such curiosity and joy.
John Miller, thank you for this beautiful tribute for John Mowder. What a lovely man he was. He and I were in school together in Moundsville. I connected with him about twenty five years ago and we had an email correspondence that I treasure. In high school, I didn’t know he was gay back then. That wasn’t talked about, but as we “talked” on email I realized he was and we talked about that and everything else. So upbeat and wise he was. The last time I saw him was in August. I asked him to come to our high school reunion because I didn’t want to be there with all those “Trumpers” without back-up. (Please don’t quote me on this!) I ran to hug him as he drove into the hotel parking lot and noticed how thin he was. I wonder if he knew then about the cancer. He held on to me for a long time. He was on his way to his friend’s house to change clothes and he joined us later. There were some of us who “protected” him when he was back for the reunions. We were in conversation on messenger after the election and talked about how our friends back in Moundsville have been hoodwinked by this Con Artist.
You must have written his obituary? So beautiful. When John, his partner, died, there was a service with the school, but John didn’t go. I don’t know if he made arrangements for his own ashes or not. He and John had talked about what to do with his. I am delighted that you spent time with him. I was supposed to be in Pittsburgh last spring for an event but couldn’t go because of a foot surgery. I am sorry I never saw him in his Pittsburgh home. It must be like a museum.
I just want to thank you for this. I don’t know about the movie, Moundsville. I will have to look it up. We lost a good guy.
I’m John’s neighbor, stumbling upon your post while Googling him reminiscently. I only knew John for ~2 years, but he was the very definition of a loving neighbor and friend. I would do laundry in his basement and we’d hang out watching Jeopardy, or the news, or tiring out his crazy dog Tommy, or just chatting until my clothes were clean and dry (except for the clothes I was wearing, which would always leave reeking of cigarettes :P).
John would introduce me as his “Millennial friend” and I would introduce John as “my Boomer friend.” And we really were friends, in a way that I’ve never connected with anyone multiple generations my senior. Both of us medical marijuana patients, he’d load up bowl after bowl, smoke me under the table (my 15-year tolerance no match for his 50+), and we’d talk about politics, the future, the past, life, death… I cherished our bond and while I’ve known that friendships with 70-something-year-olds come with an expiration date, when it happened, it happened fast. When I walk past John’s house now, I still look to see if his porch swing is moving, hoping against hope for one more visit.
On more than one occasion, John shared with me his first understanding of death. As a young child, when his aunt passed away, his family set up her open casket in their living room overnight. They didn’t tell John a thing. He was left to just discover her there, dead and displayed. The story was always somewhat inexplicable, but I think it was John’s way of explaining his nonchalance about death. He came from people who were very matter-of-fact about it (perhaps TOO matter-of-fact about it), and John inherited that basic attitude. I know firsthand: John was ready, unafraid, and didn’t want drama or fuss when it happened.
John’s last request of me was to help clear out his fridge and freezers. The whole time I knew him, he was feeding me. Pizza, yes, but also huge Tupperware containers full of entrees and sides that would last me a week or more. Even visiting over the last month, he was still handing me his hospital-issued meat loaf, peach cups, applesauce, desserts, etc.. And today, I’m enjoying pot roast made with beef he froze last October. He won’t stop! John will be six months dead and STILL making sure I’m not hungry!
Bless this man, I miss him dearly.
I wish I had known him. John sounds like a remarkable man, someone who was a joy to be friends with. I’m sure he is going to be greatly missed.
I first meet John Mowder when I was about 15. I worked for him at the carnival for a few summers before graduation from high school. He was a wise man. He gave me life advice from work ethic to how to treat people. My father was absent throughout my life. John was truly my surrogate father.
I kept in contact and often visited him over the last 41 years.
I Introduced him to my wife and children when they were younger. My daughter and would stop by after I picked her up from College where she studied art education. The two of them would talk about art and teaching for hours. My daughter is now teaching art in Ohio I know John would be happy for her.
John always wore a smile and had a story to tell. I will miss John he was a great friend to have.
Thank you for letting me glimpse such a fascinating life, John. My condolences, and happy New Year to you. My guess is John Mowder is living it up somewhere right about now.
Yes, Rebecca, I suspect you are right. And he’s got a big smile on his face.
I first met John Mowder when he was teaching art in the early 1970’s. I was the Education Director at the West Virginia State Penitentiary in Moundsville. He was so full of life and over the years as I moved to Indiana and finally to Seattle we kept in touch. I loved to hear his stories about being in the circus. We talked alot about living in Moundsville. He was a unique, caring, loving man. I treasure his memory, his art and his stories. His life was full of adventures. It was a life well lived.
Anthony (Dutch Draco) Marchani
Oh John! Where do I start? It seems I have known you all my life and remember you as being a kind, caring person. In grade school, you were always such a sweet, kind, and quiet person. We often have talked about Mrs. Nuss’s class and how she singled us both out, not as her pets, but as her scapegoats. He said one time, “That is what made us such strong people!” All through grade school and Moundsville High school I was always happy to say you were a friend. We lost touch for many years and then reunited at one of the reunions. We talked often on private messenger, but not as often as I wished. You asked if I would come to the last reunion for our class, but I declined, as I had vowed not to attend anymore class reunions.
How I wish I could have seen you and talked to you one last time. You will always have a special place in my heart my friend, and will be missed by many people who knew and loved you for the special person that you were!
John and I were classmates, but we didn’t connect until later in life through Facebook Messenger. We enjoyed chatting about what was happening in our lives, politics (we were both on the same page), and so many subjects. I so enjoyed our chats and I miss them so much. Thank you for a beautiful tribute. Shine brightly in a better world, John. You are missed.
I also miss Mowder. He was a presence I’ll not forget.
Earlier today, I was looking at the paintings that John sent us in return to our Christmas card a few years ago, when we moved back to California. John was always full of life, I can’t process the fact that he’s not at his house anymore. It hurts to know that he’s gone.
This is a beautiful tribute to a wonderful person!