Frances S. Cowenhoven

BRUNSWICK — Frances S. Cowenhoven, 86, died Thursday, April 17, 2008, at her home at Thornton Hall.

She was born Oct. 22, 1921, in Boston, a daughter of Frank M. and Margaret S. Sawtell. She grew up in the Chestnut Hill section of Brookline, Mass.

She graduated from Beaver Country Day School and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Vassar College in 1943.

After graduation, she lived in New York City where she worked for a market research firm. During World War II, she worked in a research department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

She married Nicholas R. Cowenhoven at Chestnut Hill in 1946. The couple settled in New Brunswick, N.J., later moving to Grafton, Mass.

As her children grew up, she began a teaching career, working at Shepherd Knapp School, a private K-9 school, in Boylston, Mass., through most of the 1960s. During the 1970s, she worked for two alternative schools in Worcester, Mass., the Elm Park Center and the Worcester New School.

In the many years they lived in Grafton, she and her husband were actively involved with the Grafton Unitarian Church. For most of her life, she was an active member of a lake association in Maine, the Mountainy Pond Club, serving a term as president.

In retirement, she and her husband moved to York, where she was an active volunteer at York Hospital and the York Public Library, and then to Thornton Oaks, a retirement community in Brunswick.

She was predeceased in September 2007 by her husband of 60 years, Nicholas R. Cowenhoven.

She leaves four children, Nicholas (Jr.) and Anne Cowenhoven of York, Margaret S. Cowenhoven of Wayland, Mass., Andrew and Liza Cowenhoven of Concord, N.H., and Emily C. and Richard Searle of Newburyport, Mass.; a sister, Katherine S. Plimpton of Sherborn, Mass.; six grandchildren; and many nephews and nieces.

SERVICES: Funeral arrangements are by Stetson's Funeral Home, 12 Federal St., Brunswick, and will be announced at a later date at the funeral home Web site, www.stetsonsfuneralhome.com.

Memorial condolences also may be expressed at www.stetsonsfuneralhome.com. Donations in Mrs. Cowenhoven's memory may be made to the New England Forestry Foundation, P.O. Box 1346, Littleton, MA 01460.