Marilyn T. McDowell

Marilyn T. McDowell

May 4, 1936 - April 26, 2024

Marilyn T. McDowell was born on May 4, 1936 in Tilden, Nebraska and passed away on April 26, 2024 in Green Valley, Arizona.

After graduating from Katherine Gibbs College in New York, Marilyn served on the Washington, DC staff of Kansas Senator Andrew Schoeppel for three years followed by a year on the staff of Kansas Congressman Robert Dole. She recalled the Kennedy years in Washington as "a really exciting time to be in the Capital."

She then returned to the mid-west. Her first two children, Jennifer and Andrew, were born in Kansas and her youngest child, Janelle was born following a move to Nebraska.

Subsequently she worked as Administrative Assistant at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln for 27 years. Over her career at the University she provided support for a wide variety of activities. These included a special curriculum to introduce freshmen to university level studies (the ADAPT Program), an effort to bring the university into compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, the organization of a national meeting of the Division of Atomic Physics of the American Physical Society and a program to introduce high school students to the physics of cosmic rays (the CROP Program).

Marilyn volunteered at the Sheldon Museum of Art at the University of Nebraska, the Bryan Medical Center West in Lincoln, the First Plymouth Congregational Church in Lincoln and the University of Nebraska State Museum.

Marilyn is survived by her husband, Ed Schmidt, her children, Jennifer Chickering (Mark), Andrew McDowell (Julie) and Jannelle Senden (David), and eight grandchildren.