Dina Moore Bowden

Chapter 30

Please excuse the long summer break. It's now nearing end of August and it's time to return to my memories of Mallorca and set them down here with photos of those days.


I have been wanting to write a short bio about Dina Moore Bowden, the lovely lady who was the mistress of Spindrift. But I found a complete account of her life in the Journal of San Diego History, written in memoriam on her passing in May of 1981 by Sylvia Arden, archivist of the San Diego Historical Society. It is also with interest that I discovered that a geographical point in Calvià, near Portals Nous, has been named after her:
'Sa Punta de Na Dina'.

So I will insert...with thanks to the SDHS... Sylvia Arden's biography here with the accompanying photos and the above link to the original page.


Born in northern California, Dina was taken as a three-month-old infant to the Hawaiian Islands, where she lived with her family on a sugar plantation until she was twelve. Returning to California, she became a student of violin, and after graduating high school continued her musical studies in violin and voice in Vienna.

After her marriage to Englishman George Bowden, a voice coach and writer, they lived in New York where their son George, Jr. was born. The Bowdens spent every summer with Dina's family in California.

In the course of travels in 1932, following years of intense work in the life of musical New York, the Bowden trio arrived in Mallorca. They were enthralled when they first learned that Father Junípero Serra was born in Petra, Mallorca. Dina wrote to her family in California, "The realization that we Californians were now on an Island from which this civilization emerged was a tantalizing subject for thought. It aroused a keen awareness of the significance of everything we saw in Mallorca in relation to California."

The Bowdens quickly succumbed to the charm of Mallorca, and decided to settle there. They had a house built at Portals Nous in the Mallorcan architectural style they admired. Dina soon devoted her life to renewing and strengthening the age-old links with her home state of California. She helped organize, and became president of the Amigos de Mallorca, and was largely responsible for the building of the beautiful Museum and Center of Studies in Petra, near the little house where Father Serra was born. Official ambassador for California, Dina greeted and escorted visitors from California to Petra, and hosted many celebrations at the Bowden home at Portals Nous.

In 1948-49 Dina brought an Exhibition of Mallorca Artes and Crafts to libraries and museums throughout California to acquaint people with the culture and history of the Island. Included was an exhibit at the Serra Museum. This was the beginning of a long, close friendship with the San Diego Historical Society. Dina paid the Society a second visit in 1962.

In 1978 and again in 1980, I was privileged to represent the San Diego Historical Society on official visits to Mallorca with David McKenzie Smith, chairman of the Library and Archives Committee and Board member. The Society's plans to reinterpret the Serra Museum with more emphasis on Father Serra and his birthplace excited Dina, and she crammed our suitcases with antique costumes, fabric and exhibit pieces. Dina decided that the Society should also receive her library of rare books on Father Serra, and the albums carefully detailing her active life in Mallorca. She devoted most of her time the past three years organizing the collections to send to us. Shortly before her death, she wrote telling us that the collections were on their way, and how thrilled she was to learn that a room in the Serra Museum, exhibiting her donations, will be named after her.

Dina Moore Bowden involved in her favorite activity—working on an exhibit to commemorate Father Serra.

The San Diego Historical Society has lost a great friend. But all Californians will be forever enriched by Dina Bowden's contributions to us for they have strengthened our cultural links with Mallorca—the native land of our state's founding "Father"—Junípero Serra.

Sylvia Arden Head
Librarian Librarian/Archivist
San Diego Historical Society

Continue on to Chapter 31 Living in Palma
Go back to Chapter 29 The House at Spindrift

The Guitar Factory

Chapter 12


Mr. G.’s guitar factory at that time was located on the edge of Palma in The Pueblo Español, or Spanish Village, an enclosed area built in 1965 consisting of nearly one hundred replicas of famous Spanish buildings and monuments. It was quite a pleasant place, with its winding streets, main plaza and fountains where one could see, for example, smaller versions of the Alhambra of Granada, the house of Greco and the large and beautiful Palacio de Congresos, the Congress Palace where international events are still held today.


When I arrived in Mallorca it was all fairly new and the little guitar factory, called Los Guitarreros de Mallorca, was installed in one of the buildings seen on the left in the street of the top photo. The guitar builder from mainland Spain, José Orti, also know as el maestro, had left and been replaced by José Ferrer who was aided by two young ladies, Pepa from Andalucia and Maria, who was Mallorquin. They helped with the work as well as the polishing and finishing of the guitars.

El maestro had also been responsible for teaching the Japanese constructors at Yamaha how to make a Spanish classical guitar. A wall of the Palma workshop, el taller displayed framed photos of this elderly gentleman in his black beret surrounded by a group of white lab-coated Japanese in the Yamaha factory as he showed them the intricacies of contructing a classical guitar.

Here below is the first guitar label placed inside the guitars made at Los Guitarreros de Mallorca.


There is no scent to me more captivating than that found inside a guitar workshop. The woods have such a wonderful perfume! The rosewood for the back and sides, the cedar and spruce for the tops and the beautiful ebony for the fingerboards give off their peculiar aromas as they are shaven and moulded into shape. Just being in a workshop where the goal is to build an exquisite instrument for the purpose of creating beautiful music is exciting, and it is even more so as the instrument begins to take form, and is then polished, and then strung and then with great anticipation …..tested for the first time. What satisfaction it is when the creation turns out well!

My present guitar made in June 1968 by José Ferrer, son.


At this point I feel it is time to reveal the identity of Mr.G., my mentor and good friend, whom I had met in the early 1960s in Vancouver in his guitar outlet called The Mediterranean Shop, on tenth avenue near the university gates, where I learned to play and later to teach classical guitar. Since this dear, quiet man, who dedicated himself to studying and improving the construction of guitars is no longer living and has since become a legend not only in the Balearic Isles, but also in the whole of Spain as one of the great contemporary luthiers of the past generation, I should not keep his identity hidden any longer.


His name was George Moore Bowden. There has been much written about him and his parents who came to settle in Mallorca in 1932 and I will elaborate more on my relationship with this unique family in a coming entry.

Here is a photo of George Bowden with his successor, Antonio Morales:


I was just a bystander but I had been drawn deeply into being a part of all this. It began in Vancouver, B.C. around 1964.

Continue on to Chapter 13...... Vancouver Flashback - Mediterranean Shop

Go back to Chapter 11......The Guitar Center