Harry Oscar Bowles was born in 1878 in Ohio. He was married to Mary Georgette Bowles, and had one daughter. He was ordained in 1905 and was a minister in Toledo, Ohio, before coming to New Haven to serve as the rector of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, where he served from 1907 to 1929. He had the longest tenure of any rector at the church.
Bowles earned a bachelor of divinity degree from Kenyon College in 1910, and in 1911 he completed a master's degree in biblical literature at Yale. He continued taking courses in the Yale Graduate School, studying religious history. At Yale he was a member of Zeta Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity.
According to historian Jill Snyder, Bowles had a reputation as a great pastor and administrator. He was known for officiating at the funerals of hundreds of people of all races who died in the influenza pandemic during World War I. Bowles presided over a period of significant growth at St. Luke’s as the city welcomed migrants from the South and the Caribbean.
Bowles left St. Luke’s in 1929 and retired to Boston, Massachusetts. In 1949, he returned to New Haven to serve for a short time as interim rector at his former parish. Bowles died in 1959 in Boston.
Image citation: Group photo of members of the Zeta Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, 1915, from the Yale Alumni Magazine, June 1970