Newspaper article

A Mother’s Story
A woman from Calhoun Falls is planning a book signing at the Calhoun Falls Library




By: Henry E. Green

A woman who grew up in Calhoun Falls will have a book signing at the Calhoun Falls Library on Sunday, August 20, at 2 p.m. for a story about her daughter’s heroic struggle against disease.
Jodi Bowman Scully, who now lives in Belton, will have a
Signing for her book “Tried by Fire”, a book about her daughter,
Christy Bowman, who passed away at the age of 18 in 1989 from a rare blood disorder.
The book describes the effect which Christy’s disease had on her and those around her, including family and friends. “It tells how God gave her the strength to face what she was facing,” said Scully, adding the book also includes many Scripture references, and poetry as well.
Many people in Abbeville County have already read the
book, which was published in January, 2005, and they found it.
“amazing”, said Scully. One woman cried as she was talking about her
reaction to the book.
Christy was involved in a number of things at Calhoun Falls High School, including a program to help kids off
drugs. The young lady, who felt she was called to be a missionary, was also active in her church –the Calhoun Falls Pentecostal Holiness Church. Jodi noted that ironically, Christy has become something of a missionary in a way she probably never expected. This young woman who played in the Calhoun Falls band, and was a cheerleader was an individual filled with love.
“She was always accepting of people, and never judgmental,” said Scully. “She was one wonderful person.”
Then came the illness, which began with joint pain. “One day it would be her wrist, and then it would be her finger,” said Scully. The later symptoms of the disease included a loss of red blood cells. “They just couldn’t keep enough blood in her,” Scully said.
At first physicians thought she had lupus, but that diagnosis was premature, and the search to find out what was really going on in her body took the family everywhere from Greenwood to Greenville to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. Finally, she was diagnosed with auto-immune hemolytic anemia, a blood disorder.
Christy graduated from Calhoun Falls High School in 1989, and even sang a song at graduation. Christy chose “One Moment in Time” to sing. “It related so much to her life, and to what she was experiencing,” said Scully.
“The last three months we practically lived at Emory hospital,” She said.
Scully, who is the sister of Calhoun Falls restaurant owner, Frankie Auten, today devotes her time to promoting the book, which she says can be found online, through such sites as Amazon.com.
Scully explains that even before Christy died, she felt the story needed to be out there. “I just couldn’t get away from it,” she said. She would sit up at night over her typewriter, and the tears flowed as the story made its way onto the pages. “When I started writing it, it just flowed,” she said. “I just felt so strongly that it had to be published.”
It took about two years to write “Tried by Fire”, and then it was a process of editing and re-editing it before it was published by Xulon Press, based in Florida.

Scully also has a son, Daniel, a computer technician who lives in Boiling Springs and works in Greenville, and a nine-year-old granddaughter, Brooke, who has been a particular joy in her life since Christy passed away. “She’s been my heart,” she said.

It will be 17 years this year since Christy died, “God took her on Christmas morning,” Scully said.