Son grants mother’s wish to perform in Las Vegas

Angie Wagner

Thursday, Sept. 24, 1998 | 9:07 a.m.

LAS VEGAS - Eight months after she died, Betty Bowman finally got her chance to play Las Vegas.

Her moment never came on stage where the once glamorous blonde had long dreamed of performing. Instead, it came in the rose garden of the Flamingo Hilton, where her son opened a small brown box Wednesday and scattered her ashes.

"Her greatest dream finally came true," a sobbing Jim Kleinhans, 55, said. "She's finally playing the Flamingo."

Bowman was born in 1911 in Chattanooga, Tenn. Her family soon moved to Ohio, and by the time Bowman turned 20, she was belting out jazz and blues tunes on the club and stage circuit. She traveled across the country singing in various clubs and even had her own radio show at WAIU in Columbus.

She longed for a career performing, but after she married John Kleinhans in 1940, she took a job as a secretary and had a son.

Kleinhans remembers his mother always singing around the house, playing the piano and entering the parents' night talent shows at his high school in Medina.

"We always had music around the house," her son said.

His parents divorced in 1949 and Mrs. Kleinhans raised her only child by herself. The single mother made sure there was food on the table and made it to every school function, trading her dreams for his.

Kleinhans never realized how much his mother loved performing until he read some old newspaper articles announcing her performances.

"She was a beautiful woman," Kleinhans said.

In the 1970s, Mrs. Kleinhans remarried and moved to Santa Monica, Calif., where she worked as an apartment manager. Her new husband died a few years later.

Kleinhans' father, a former state trooper and a colonel in the Marines, died in 1977.

Mrs. Kleinhans and her son, who remained in Ohio, would often visit Las Vegas and her favorite casinos - the Flamingo Hilton and the Desert Inn.

"She used to say, 'Those are the real casinos in Las Vegas,' " Kleinhans said.

His mother didn't think much of pirate shows and the hoopla that accompanied the other casinos.

Kleinhans, a retired private investigator, moved to Las Vegas about 10 years ago and his mother joined him in 1990 when her health began to fail.

"Drive by the Flamingo, Jamie," Kleinhans remembers his mother saying. "Let me see the Flamingo."

Mrs. Kleinhans, who loved teddy bears and tabloid magazines, died Jan. 22 in a nursing home at the age of 86.

"She was perfect - the most understanding and loving woman that any son could wish for. I could do no wrong in her eyes."

Until now, Kleinhans had kept the box of his mother's ashes in his apartment, wondering what he should do with it.

He wrote a letter to the Flamingo Hilton, explaining how his mother always wanted to perform there but never got the chance. The hotel arranged for Kleinhans to spread his mother's ashes in the rose garden.

"Mom loved the limelight," said Kleinhans, a father of six grown children.

A quartet from the resort's show, "Forever Plaid," sang "Moments to Remember" after Kleinhans said a few words about his mother, her picture placed in front of him.

"Honestly, I don't think she would have been a big star, but I think she would have been ... more recognized."

On Wednesday, Mrs. Kleinhans got just that.