Lois Cowan Rische

In the height of the Depression, Lois Cowan Rische was born on the 8th of June 1930, to Eunice Marie Boteler and Thomas Jackson in Takoma Park, Maryland. Because of Mr. Jackson’s ingenuity and creativity, Lois never knew the hardships so common to others during that time. She grew into a find young lady and attended the University of Maryland where she met her future husband, Mr. Thomas Cowan, a medical student. Dr. and Mrs. Cowan resided in Maryland, Ohio and finally settled in Texas. After her husband’s death in 1962, Lois practiced orthoptics in Galveston and Houston. She met and married one of her patients, the dashing Colonel Allen Rische, originally from San Antonio and Dallas, who became her constant companion until his death in 1993 of Alzheimer’s. Lois penned the humorous side of living with the disease, in a loving tribute to Mr. Rische, in her book The Mariachis Are Gone.

Lois occupied her time volunteering at Palmer Episcopal’s outreach programs and the Houston SPCA. She loved the Texas Hill Country and had recently made it a summertime tradition to vacation in Hunt, Texas with her two daughters Fontaine and Susan, along with her two granddaughters Colette and Shannon.

Mrs. Rische is survived by son Michael Cowan of Pearland, daughter Fontaine Clendaniel, daughter Susan Cowan of Philadelphia; grandchildren Shannon and Holden Cowan of Pearland, Colette and Colin Clendaniel of El Lago, and Benjamin Thomas Cowan of Philadelphia; sisters Helen Stoltz of Takoma Park, Maryland and Edie Fafard of Beltsville, Maryland; as well as a host of lifelong friends and neighbors.

Friends are cordially invited to a visitation with the family from one until four o’clock in the afternoon on Sunday, the 18th of April, at Geo. H. Lewis & Sons, 1010 Bering Drive in Houston.

The interment service is to be held at nine o’clock in the morning on Monday, the 19th of April, at Houston National Cemetery, 10410 Veterans Memorial Drive in Houston.

The memorial service will follow at eleven o’clock in the morning at Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church, 6221 Main Street in Houston.