By Craig Anderson

FELTON — They eat just one meal a day instead of three, and it isn’t much.
But it’s what $254 in federal food benefits and a monthly box of goods from the Food Bank of Delaware provide for 79-year-old Marie Bowden, and her husband, Robert Bowden.

She said they have lived hungrily for many years.

Both suffered massive internal injuries in a crash with a tractor-trailer in 2000 and haven’t been the same since.

“It made the news,” Ms. Bowden said of the incident. “My brain came away from my skull, (which) affected my brain stem. That’s something that lasts forever.”

At the time, the Bowdens operated a sign-making company, but they never fully recovered financially from the debilitating injuries, she said.

Plus, another significant crash occurred three or four years ago, and “that was the clincher.”

“I want to work. I don’t want to use this cane, but I have balance problems,” she said. “I also have arthritis, osteoporosis, rheumatism and kidney problems. My husband would jump out of that bed if he could, but he has back fractures.”

So, when it comes to eating, the couple consumes a lot of cereal and oatmeal, along with a monthly supply of canned vegetables, rice, beans and a quart of milk from the food bank.

To compensate for that sparse amount, she and her spouse drink a lot of water between meals to partially fill their stomachs. However, “I do walk around at times and wish I could find something to eat,” she said.

The Bowdens collect their food bank box at Calvary Church in Dover, where they’re congregants, and shop carefully for the rest of their nourishment.

The two purchase goods for a month at a time, so they can ration it and not run out.

“We have to really watch what we’re buying,” she said. “You can’t buy too many meats, I’ll tell you that right now. I got shocked when I was going to buy a roll of hamburger that was $25, and it was $39.”

She went on to say that such woes aren’t “just a senior thing. It can involve young people, as well. I don’t think the state recognizes that anyone can have disabling injuries, and it’s hard for them to work.”

But it wasn’t always this way, Ms. Bowden said, far from it.

“We were very busy. We would go out every Sunday and eat and not worry about it,” she said. “But we can’t have any of that now, so the quality of your life changes. But you have to put pride aside if you want to survive.”

Staff writer Craig Anderson can be reached at 302-741-8296 or canderson@iniusa.org.
Follow @DSNAnderson on X.