John Elmer Fowler, Jr (12/12/1927 to 1/4/2015) passed away on or close to April 20, 2012 (at age 84) in Kernville, California, due to the consequences of Alzheimer’s and heat exhaustion. He was discovered in the wilderness on January 4, 2015 (age 87), his formal date of death. He was buried alongside his wife, Priscilla Jane Hunt at the Riverside Cemetery in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. John is sorely missed by his loved ones and remembered fondly by all who knew him.
John was survived by his beloved wife, Priscilla Hunt Fowler, until her death at age 90 in Laguna Beach, California. He is survived by his daughter Rebecca Fowler Miller and son-in-law, Douglas Robinson Miller in Laguna Beach, California, his son, John Hunt Fowler and daughter-in-law, Kristina Fowler in Hawaii. Also, his grandsons, Jesse Huckins Robinson Miller and Josiah Bartlett Miller in Laguna Beach and Long Beach, California.
John was predeceased by his parents, John E. Fowler, Sr (1979) and Winona Eleda Bailey Fowler (1973) and his older brother, Charles Theodore Fowler (1994). His twin brother, George Clark Fowler searched for his brother the day after he had disappeared. George passed away in San Clemente, California, on January 14, 2014, at age 86, 10 days after his twin brother was found.
All three brothers served proudly in the U.S. Navy during and after World War II, the eldest having been a commodore during wartime. The twins collected weaponry and built infrastructure in Okinawa immediately after the war ended. After his service, John worked part of the year in Los Angeles and part of the year in Miles City, Montana where he was a surveyor, a summer lifeguard and popular clown diver at the local lake. In Miles City, he met Priscilla Jane Hunt who was a professional florist from Sault Ste Marie, Michigan. The two fell in love and married in Minneapolis, Minnesota (midway between the two families from California and Michigan). The couple moved to Southern California and settled in the little beach town of San Clemente in 1954.
While raising their family, John worked as a mail carrier for the San Clemente Post Office for 12 years until he retired. John was an early surfer, skim boarder, lifeguard and a self-taught photographer. Many of his surf photographs and some articles were published in John Severson’s Surfer Magazine. His family took summer months to go on travel film adventures across the western United States, Canada and Mexico. John’s early films were shown on the television shows of Jack Douglas and Bill Burrud. He also became a favorite film lecturer on the Ralph Windoes Travel Lecture Circuit on the East Coast and in Hawaii. Later, he made several feature adventure films from the Grand Tetons to Baja California that were shown in local movie theaters. He also enjoyed inventing and drawing.
After Fowler retired from the Post Office he moved his family to a log cabin in Kelly, Wyoming, population 35, to film wildlife and other nature. He recalled in a 1976 interview how he made a six-day ski hike through Yellowstone National Park in below-zero weather, filmed an ascent in the Tetons, was trampled by a horse filming a rodeo and explored the then-primitive southern stretch of Baja California while filming “Motion,” a surfing/hang-gliding/Hobie Cat/motorcycling action-sports film.
It was a family enterprise, with his wife, son John and daughter Becky helping produce the films. The Fowlers would travel the country, showing their films to small-town audiences in auditoriums.
John and Priscilla spent their golden years as summer campground hosts in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and in the Grand Tetons in Wyoming. They also moved frequently between San Clemente, California, and Hawaii before settling in Kernville, California in the Sierras.
In his eighties, John volunteered at the National Forest Headquarters in Kernville where he helped make a computer program to keep track of wildlife sightings. He and his wife, Priscilla, volunteered many hours walking along the Kern River Road, cleaning up the roadsides and documenting for the Forest Service the traces left by the elusive fisher (weasel). He also worked as a successful advocate for getting a much-needed pedestrian crossing installed at the town’s highway entrance.
Our family sincerely thanks Kern Valley Search and Rescue and their volunteers for their valiant and compassionate efforts for over a year.
John Fowler is buried beside his wife, Priscilla Jane Hunt Fowler, at the Riverside Cemetery in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.Kern County Coroner’s Office indicated the “Legal time of death: The time at which the body was discovered or physically pronounced dead by another individual. This is the time that is shown - by law - on a death certificate.”
[S5] Find A Grave, → Memorial ID 145199635.
1927 - 2012 (84 years)
. Janie Eleda YOUNG, b. 29 Apr 1948, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 
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