Ella Bowen Lomastro, retired co-founder and CFO of Visual Marketing, Inc., passed away on November 13, 2017 surrounded by loving friends. Born at home on a farm December 30th, 1922, in Wilson, NC, she was one of the 9 children of Henry F. Bowen and Emma Coley Bowen, sharecroppers. But Ella was never destined to remain in a small town or on the farm. At the age of 19, she went to work at an army base near Goldsboro, NC. When a young officer told her she was too smart to stay there, she jumped at the opportunity to move to Chicago with help from his girlfriend. 2 weeks later, without telling her parents, she packed all of her things, neglected to phone them (they had no phone) and got on a train bound for the windy city. She took up residence at the women's YWCA and finally called home to tell her parents what she'd done. Her father's only response: "You had to pick the meanest city on earth!" Ella's first job in Chicago was in accounting at the Raybestos Company, where she befriended a young woman who took her home with her one weekend to Riverside and introduced her to her older brother, Richard Lomastro. They were married within the year. Richard was the President of Master Electric in Chicago and passed away in March of 2009. From Raybestos, Ella went to Harrison Wholesale, and finally to Price Brothers, where she worked with its new president, Marion D. "Pat" Cloud until Gulton Industries bought out the company in 1972. Ella, Pat and designer John Defner then formed Visual Marketing Inc as partners, starting their company with a telephone and a table salvaged from the street, in a corner of an empty warehouse at 154 W. Erie, owned and loaned to them by Lee Flaherty of Flair, Inc., founder of the Chicago Marathon. Today the company they started averages over 20 million in sales a year.