Peggy COWLES

Actress, teacher, private conservationist, and favorite aunt, Peggy Cowles passed away on September 18, 2025, after suffering a debilitating stroke.

Peggy was born on October 30, 1937, in Spokane to William H. Cowles, Jr. and Margaret (Paine) Cowles. From the start, she staged plays and dramas with her friends and stuffed animals. She attended the Washington School and Lewis & Clark High School in Spokane before graduating from the Katherine Branson School in Marin County, CA. She attended Vassar College and graduated from Whitworth College with a degree in drama in 1959. She studied acting at Stanford University and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts and received her MFA from Yale Drama School in 1965.

She married playwright and drama teacher, Daniel A. Stein, that same year and the two began a professional and personal partnership that lasted many years. Dan wrote one of Peggy's most critically acclaimed one-woman shows called "An Independent Woman," a depiction of women's rights activist and abolitionist Anna Dickinson's life through excerpts of her lectures.

Peggy served as a member of the Long Wharf, Milwaukee and Louisville Rep Theaters, where she played dozens of characters ranging from Maggie in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" to Annie in Alan Aykbourn's "Table Manners." She and Dan taught drama classes at North Kentucky University for much of the late '70s and early '80s. In the meantime, she pursued acting opportunities in film and television. She played minor parts in the Jon Voight film The All-American Boy (1973) and several award-winning short films. Her television credits include episodes from Marcus Welby, MD, The Bold Ones and Law & Order.

Peggy loved New York City where she maintained an apartment that included a small stage. But her favorite place was a primitive cabin on a lake once owned by her grandfather. She took great pride in living without electricity, expanding her land ownership, and protecting wild land from development or any other human incursion. In later years, she enlisted the help of her sister, Agnes, to build "stone house," a modern house built to look like a stone outcropping typical of the surrounding landscape. While she was adept at adhering to convention, Peggy engaged her friends and family with her restless creativity and fascination with cats. She was a spiritual person, finding inspiration and solace from nature, Christian Science, Hinduism, and Native American traditions.

She is survived by her brother, James P. Cowles (Wanda, deceased); and sister, Agnes Cowles Bourne; and was predeceased by her brother, William H. Cowles, 3rd (Allison, deceased); partner, Jerry McDermott; and her ex-husband, Daniel A. Stein. She is survived by nieces and nephews, William "Stacey" Cowles (Anne), Betsy Cowles (Jim Meyer), Jay Cowles (Kati), Heidi Girardoni (Johannes), and Edward Evans (Yohko), and many cousins, grandnieces and nephews.

Her family would like especially to thank the many Senior Helpers aids who took care of her in her final years and land caretaker, Don Brackins, who enabled her to live her last years at her beloved lake home.

A private celebration of life is pending. Memorial contributions may be made to the Inland Northwest Land Conservancy.