Elizabeth Bowser, Teacher of Crafts

Elizabeth Bowser, whose lineage and devotion to history propelled her to work for the East Hampton and Eastville Historical Societies and to have an impact on the understanding of Native American, African-American, and colonial crafts and culture, died at the age of 96 at Southampton Hospital on Dec. 17. She was a resident of Sag Harbor.

Ms. Bowser, who was born on July 25, 1919, was the only daughter of Aubrey and Jessie Bowser. She was said to have been named for Mary Elizabeth Bowser, who conveyed Confederate war plans to the Union during the Civil War while a house servant for Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president. She was the granddaughter of Carrie Smiley, the daughter of an enslaved Native American and a slave owner, and T. Thomas Fortune, who was born a slave and eventually became a ghostwriter for Booker T. Washington and founded the New York Age, a newspaper for African- Americans, in 1887. Ms. Bowser was raised in Brooklyn and spent summers in Sag Harbor, where her grandmother worked as a seamstress after the Civil War, before retiring from her New York positions in the 1970s.

A graduate of New York University, she was fluent in Spanish and French, and worked for the United Nations after World War II. She spent eight years in France working as an interpreter and, after moving back to this country, became a social worker in New York City and worked for the New York State Unemployment Office.

Ms. Bowser learned about textiles and native crafts, which she considered homage to her grandmother. She honed basketry and weaving skills in the 1960s at the Hallockville Museum Farm in Riverhead, and would later teach those crafts for East Hampton Town, Guild Hall, and the Shinnecock Reservation. In 1978, Ms. Bowser began working for the East Hampton Historical Society, where she helped catalog nearly 10,000 artifacts and under whose auspices taught historic arts in schools and the community. Over the years, she was a docent at Clinton Academy, Home, Sweet Home Museum, Hook Mill, and the Mulford Farm.

Hugh King, East Hampton’s town crier, said “her demeanor was so nice — never raised her voice so that you never knew just how much she was knowledgeable about. You had to ask.” A car accident in 2010 forced her to retire, although she continued working with crafts, was known as an excellent cook, and participated in the oral history project “Voices of Sag Harbor” for the Friends of John Jermain Memorial Library.

Ms. Bowser had two brothers, Garrison Bowser and Hallowell Bowser, who died before her. She had no children but leaves a friend, Robert Pharaoh, whom she called her grandson and who cared for her in her later years.

Plans for a memorial service will be announced.