Kathryn Eva Dowd

Kathryn Eva Dowd, 85, went to be with the Lord on Monday, September 14, 2020, after approximately seven years of being homebound. A graveside service will be held at the Duncan Cemetery at 3:00pm on Saturday, September 19, 2020 under the direction of Whitt Funeral Home. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, social distancing and masks will be required at the service. Pastor Rudy Freese of First United Methodist Church will be officiating. The body will be available for viewing on Friday at Whitt Funeral Home.

Kathryn(Kathy) Dowd was born on October 30, 1934 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her parents were Luther and Alta Lawyer. She attended high school in Milan, Michigan and graduated in 1952. Kathy went to Michigan State University and graduated with her Associates Degree in Secretarial Science in 1954. She worked in secretarial positions in Michigan and Oklahoma before she became a mother and also in Duncan when her two daughters were finishing high school and college.

Kathy moved from Michigan to Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1955. She met her future husband, Phillip Dowd, at a YMCA dance in Tulsa. Phil and Kathy were married on December 22, 1956 and started their married life together in Littleton, Colorado. She was a devoted wife for the next 54 years. It seemed to come very naturally to her to interact with others in pleasant and thoughtful ways. Beneath her calm and quiet exterior was an active and observant mind. Kathy had wonderful nurturing and organizational abilities which provided an environment of peace and order for the Dowd daughters, Linda and Leanne.

Kathy moved with her husband and their daughters to Duncan, Oklahoma in July 1968 when her husband started his job as the principal at Horace Mann Elementary School. She was an active member at First United Methodist Church where she was a children’s Sunday School teacher, a member of the Couples Sunday School class, a member of United Methodist Women, served on various church committees, and volunteered in the church library as well as serving in the nursing home and church outreach visitation ministries. In her later years she greatly missed being able to be involved in her church. She was a volunteer in her daughters’ Brownie and Girl Scout troops. Girl Scouts was an activity that Kathy herself participated in through most of her own school years.

She had a great appreciation for visual beauty which could be seen in decorative details in her home and her appreciation of nature. She grew up going on frequent picnics with her family and also planned many picnics as a mother. She learned to swim in the natural lakes in Minnesota and didn’t experience a swimming pool until her college years. She always enjoyed visits with her extended family, daughters, son-in-law, and grandchildren. Travels to visit her children and provide help in life transitions took her to Northern Oklahoma, Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, and Kansas. Kathy and her husband, Phil, and sometimes Linda, took vacations to many states and especially enjoyed their trips to National Parks.

Kathy was preceded in death in by her husband, Phillip Dowd (2011), and by her parents, Luther and Alta Lawyer, and by an older sister, Geri Swindell, and an older brother, Don Lawyer, and a sister-in-law, Shirley Ruby and brother-in-law, Frank Ruby. Survivors include two daughters and a son-in-law; Linda Dowd of Duncan and Leanne and Paul Kurtzweil, of Wichita, Kansas; grandchildren, Phillip, Ellen and Steven of Kansas; a brother-in-law, Calvin Swindell; a sister-in-law, Bev Lawyer; and three nieces and a nephew and their spouses.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests memorial contributions be made to Christians Concerned at P.0. Box 811, Duncan, Oklahoma 73534 or to a favorite charity.

Online condolences can be made to the family at www.whittfh.com.

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