Dorothy Jane Owen

Dorothy Owen died on Friday, December 20, 2014, at the age of 91. She was born on May 18, 1923, in Italy, Texas, the only child of Rhoda Mae Sanders and Frank Howard Stamps. Dot grew up in east Texas and attended Lon Morris College, Stephen F. Austin College, and Texas State College for Women, from which she graduated in 1945. She married Edward Powell Owen in 1944 a few weeks before he left for the South Pacific. Dot taught high school in Miami, Florida, during the war and in Austin, Texas, after the war. She and Ed moved to Houston in 1948.

Dot was a gracious, funny, and perceptive woman who was sometimes amused, but never impressed, by pretension. She had good taste in people and things. She excelled at cooking and sewing, both of which she loved to do and missed terribly as her eyesight failed.

The mother of four daughters, she spent decades cooking good meals, letting her girls make cakes and cookies and messes in the kitchen, and turning out beautiful suits, dresses, evening gowns, draperies, purses, bedspreads, doll clothes, and costumes for all occasions for her grandchildren.

Dot was a devoted wife to Ed. They enjoyed living in Houston and being part of the Fluor family. Through the years, there were many adventures on family trips to Mexico, and later, as she and Ed traveled to Europe, Canada, and all over the states. Dot loved her women friends dearly and stayed in touch with them all, from college through her years in Bellaire and her many years in Meyerland – Ann, Billie, Tippy, Pat, Happy, Jean, her cousin Louise, Betty, Frances, Sarah, and Nina.

Dot is preceded in death by her mother Rhoda Mae Myrick, her stepfather Richard Clyde Myrick, and her father Frank Howard Stamps. She is survived by her husband of 70 years, Edward P. Owen, by her sister Nancy Myrick Corkill, and by her daughters and sons-in-law: Jenifer Pipkin (Michael), Elizabeth Kern (Jeffrey), Mary Katherine Ross (Knox), and Martha Owen (Paul Forderhase). Dot loved her seven grandchildren: Sarah Pipkin; Erin Kern; Anna, Timothy, and Megan Ross; and Daniel and Andrew Forderhase. She had two nephews, Erik Tosh (Sharon Rose) and Ditrik Tosh (Carol), and two great-nephews, Logan and Larsen Tosh.

The family wishes to thank the staff of Garden Terrace who took care of Dot over the last year of her life with great kindness and patience.

The funeral service will be held at Earthman Bellaire Funeral Home on Saturday, December 27, 2014, at 11am. Interment will follow at Memorial Oaks Cemetery.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Dot’s memory to Macular Degeneration Research, www.brightfocus.org/macular.