Rita Lorraine McGowan

Rita Lorraine McGowan

On the afternoon of July 23, 2020, Rita peacefully passed away while being visited by her son and daughter at the Windsor Care Center in Redding, CA. Rita was 88 years old.

After raising her family in Palo Cedro, she became a longtime resident of Santa Rosa and a member of Faith Lutheran Church there. A choir member, hiker, and political activist, she will be remembered mostly as a loving mother who was never one to miss out on holidays or birthdays with the family.

Born Rita Knuth in 1932 near Milwaukee, WI, Rita received an M.A. from Columbia University in Ethics/Philosophy and a second M.A., many years later, from University California Davis in European History. In the mid-seventies she taught at Shasta High School where many students would remember her class spending the night in a local federally designated "bomb shelter" complete with c-rations to mimic a nuclear disaster. Later, Rita spent 35 years as a Financial Planner in both San Francisco and Santa Rosa, with a satellite office in Redding. A few years were also spent living in Germany and traveling Europe with her husband at the time who was serving an internship with the Lutheran Church.

She maintained a strong level of independence and purpose throughout her life. In 1965, as a Lutheran campus minister at the University of Minnesota, she volunteered to drive three students to Texas in order to register voters during the heat of the South's civil rights unrest. As she agreed to drive a fourth student back to the North where he intended to go to school, she was arrested in Texas because that fourth student happened to be black, and it was forbidden to have a black person in the same car. It was also the same week another young white woman was killed in Selma, Alabama, which caused much consternation among Rita's family back home.

Rita was preceded in death by her parents Herbert and Margaret Knuth and brother Herbert Jr. She leaves behind her children Mark (Donna) McGowan and Maureen (Don) Caulfield, as well as two grandchildren Cameron (Patthama) McGowan and Logan McGowan.

Due to current conditions, no public service is planned at this time. In lieu of flowers, a donation to one's favorite charity is requested.

Her energy and passion for life will be missed by many.