Rev. Dr. Donald Elmer Gowan, 95, died at his home in the Sherwood Oaks Retirement Community, Cranberry Township, PA, on September 5, 2024. He was born to Elmer and Lucile Gowan on January 31, 1929, in Cleghorn, IA, where he grew up with his two brothers, Walter and Richard. After graduating from Cleghorn High School he attended the University of South Dakota, where he graduated summa cum laude in 1951 with a degree in mathematics. He then worked for the General Electric Co. at the Hanford Atomic Products Operation in Richland, WA, as a computer programmer, in the earliest years of the use of programmable computers for technical applications. Hanford was the site where plutonium and tritium were produced, for the atomic and hydrogen bombs. He left there in 1954 to enroll in the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary, received his B.D. degree in 1957, and was ordained to the ministry in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). He served the Presbyterian Church in Princeton from 1955 to 1959, then moved to Chicago to work on a doctorate at the University of Chicago, taking with him his new bride, Darlene, whom he met in Princeton, IA and married on December 28, 1958. They celebrated their 52nd wedding anniversary shortly before her death in 2011. He received his Ph.D. in Bible, specializing in Old Testament studies, in 1964, having already taken a teaching job at the North Texas State University in Denton, TX, where they lived from 1962 to 1965. In 1965 he was appointed to the faculty at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, where he taught until retiring in 1999 as the Robert Cleveland Holland Professor Emeritus of Old Testament. He continued to teach part-time at the Seminary for another 11 years. He and Darlene lived in Allison Park, PA for 46 years and, when she died, he moved to Sherwood Oaks. He is survived by a son and daughter-in-law, Douglas and Marie Gowan of Beech Grove, IN; nieces and nephews.
He published 12 books and numerous articles, preached as a supply minister in more than 300 different churches, and offered short courses in many churches and other venues near and far. Music, woodworking and gardening occupied parts of his time. His chief aims in life were to care for his family and to help people discover the wonder, the beauty and the power of Holy Scripture.
Gifts in memory of Donald may be sent to the Sherwood Oaks Employee Appreciation Fund. Mail checks to Sherwood Oaks, 100 Norman Dr., Cranberry Township, PA 16066 and please put EAF in the memo.
Arrangements by Kyper Funeral Home, 2703 Mt. Royal Blvd, at Mt. Royal Cemetery, Glenshaw, PA.
