Sanghae McDowell

Sang Hae McDowell, 92, passed away peacefully at Genesis Hospital on Thursday, November 5, 2020. Sang Hae had been living at the Ivy Care Facility (St Mary’s) in Davenport when she contracted Covid and succumbed later that day.

Graveside Services will be held at the National Cemetery on Rock Island Arsenal on Tuesday 10 November 2020, for immediate family only.

Sang Hae was born on 22 September 1928, in Seoul Korea, into a very influential and wealthy family. Her father, Lee Kup Soo, was Dean of Seoul University Medical Department, and had studied medicine in Germany, and was fluent in several languages. Her mother, Pang Mo Gil, was a famous artist in Korea in the 1930s and 40s.

Sang Hae was the second youngest of 7 siblings.

She led a charmed and exciting life, living through many historic events. Growing up under Japanese occupation of Korea, as a teenager during WW2, she was trained to fight the expected Allied invasion. At the start of the Korean War, on the night of June 24, 1950, while at an Embassy party, she learned of the impending North Korean invasion. She escaped with her friend, Gifford Cheesman, a British gold prospector, on a Greek Merchant ship and traveled to Japan, without a visa. She made her way to the Korean embassy, obtained her visa, and remained in Japan until the war was over.

Sang Hae was a socialite who had many friends among the elite in Korea, most notably, she was close friends with the last Princess of Korea, Yi Bang Ja, (Her Japanese name was Empress Masuko Nashimoto; she was well liked by the Korean people.) She was also friends with the South Korean President, Syngman Rhee.

Sang Hae was an accomplished artist, and attended art school in New York in the early 1950s. Her many oil paintings of landscapes and portraits attest to that. She was also good friends with Minami Taka, the personal artist for Japanese Emporer Hiro Hito. She also was quite expert at Ikebana, Japanese Flower arrangement.

Sang Hae married Gifford Cheesman, a British mining engineer, in 1951, and lived in Japan and Korea. They had one daughter, Daphne. Sang Hae married Raymond McDowell on May 15 1966.

She is survived by her son Gary McDowell of North Liberty IA, his wife Karen and their daughter Amanda, as well as her daughter Daphne Russom and her husband, Leon and their son Zachary, of Sherman Oaks California.