December 5, 1928 – August 26, 2012
by Mary Faircloth Stowe, Chapel of the Cross, Chapel Hill, NC, 2016
Anne Euretta Doar Stowe was born in Florence, South Carolina. She grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she was a member of The Church of the Good Shepherd. She was active in youth groups and attended summer camps at Kanuga. It was as Kanuga one summer that she met her future husband, Harry Stowe, a fellow camper from Christ Church, Charlotte.
Anne graduated from Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and then taught high school English before marrying Harry in 1951. Harry was by then an officer in the U. S. Air Force and they lived all over the world. The first thing Anne did when they moved to a new location was to find the Episcopal church in the community for her family of six children to attend.
After Harry’s retirement from the Air Force the family moved to Greensboro and joined St. Andrew’s within the first week. Anne was a member there for 40 years until her death in Greensboro in 2012. She was at church so much the family thought she was on every committee there. She was very involved in ECW and her chapter group, served different terms on the vestry, participated in endless Bazaar workshops, attended to never-ending Altar Guild duties and headed the Newcomers committee. She never met a stranger and she brought many members to St. Andrew’s.
Being a part of the church gave Anne purpose and strength and was of the utmost importance to her. When she was growing up, career options were limited for women. When asked what she would have liked to do for a career had there been more options available, she said she would have liked to have been a priest. That made total sense. She loved the Episcopal Church. She loved the liturgy, the history and the way that each church was different, yet the same.
Anne’s family commissioned a beautiful stained-glass window for the Chapel at St. Andrew’s as a memorial named in her honor. It is “One with God”; and so was Anne.