Our American Family - Person Sheet
Our American Family - Person Sheet
NameHarvey Richard “Dick” LOWDER 
Birth Date21 Dec 1931
Birth PlaceDenver, Denver County, Colorado
Death Date16 Nov 2020 Age: 88
Burial PlaceDenver, Denver County, Colorado, Fort Logan National Cemetery
OccupationKorean War Soldier,
Spouses
Notes for Harvey Richard “Dick” LOWDER
Growing up in Denver, Harvey, nicknamed “Dick” to his loved ones, enjoyed ice skating on frozen lakes and skiing down mountain slopes with his cousins. As the Great Depression slid into WWII, Dick’s dad was offered a machinist position with Cessna Aircraft Company. The entire family moved to Wichita, Kansas, to be with him. Dick would balance his sister Marilynne on the handlebars of his bicycle and pedal them toward the Cessna fields where they would watch squadrons of military aircraft take flight. He would later describe the thrum of the massive engines as shaking the ground.
In the years following WWII, the family moved back to Denver where Dick supported his family by working at the local Piggly Wiggly store. He later took a part-time job as an orderly with Denver’s Presbyterian Hospital while still attending classes at South High School.
At an early age, he was inspired by airplanes and automobiles. Together with his dad, he built a roadster when he was nearly seventeen, and he obtained his pilot’s license in 1955. His love of aircraft was ferocious and Dick was determined to fly. He purchased his own aircraft when he was a young man, a PT-19 followed by a two-seater Ercoupe. He inspired this same interest of flying and airplanes in his own children and grandchildren.
Shortly after his graduation from South High, he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and was stationed and trained in North Carolina. He wanted to become a doctor, and while serving his country, he trained as a surgical technician. But plans change sometimes.
Transferring to the U.S. Air Force (Reserves), he met Colleen over the backyard fence of his parent’s home in Boulder. She was literally the “girl next door.”
The couple was married April 8, 1956, in Pueblo, Colorado, and set up housekeeping in south Boulder, near what was then known as the National Bureau of Standards. It was a modest but newly constructed brick home, complete with limited furniture, a German Shepherd dog named “Duke,” and handmade charcoal gray and hot pink curtains, the colors of the early sixties. It was so empty that the small house echoed. Dick enjoyed pulling Mike and Diane around the neighborhood in a flashy Red Flyer wagon, when he and Colleen weren’t building a cabin cruiser boat in their small one-car garage, that is.
Shortly before he met and married Colleen, Dick purchased property on Sugarloaf Mountain, and divided the acreage between his parents and siblings. “The Cabin,” as it is known among the Lowders’, is still in use, revised and renovated for a new generation to enjoy.
During the time that Dick was waiting for his clearance to start working at Rocky Flats, he was employed with the U.S. Postal Service. When the clearance came through, he worked for Rocky Flats as a metallurgist. He retired in 1993, putting in 40 years of dedicated service during the Cold War. His father Harvey G. Lowder, and friends Lloyd Kneebone, Bud Lambert, and Tom Bell, also worked at “The Plant,” as it was known then, and they were there during the critical Building 771 fire, that crippled production for a time.
As Dick and Colleen’s family grew, the couple moved to Orchard Avenue, in rural Boulder, where they met their dear friends Jack and Kathy Morrow, who lived across the street. The country life was interesting. It involved feeding a flock of rangy chickens left over from the previous owners, (Colleen let their son do the chore), and clearing the half-acre of weeds and rocks for some landscaping. But the joy of drinking ice-cold Rocky Mountain spring water from a well, made it all worthwhile.
With Jack and Kathy living so close, it was an easy invitation for Mike and Diane to join other children at the Boulder Bible Chapel’s craft classes each week. It was a joy for the children to sit mesmerized by Kathy’s uncle, Ken Baird, who drew lavish chalk pictures and wove Scripture stories so thrilling, his young audience felt that they knew Noah personally. It was always a proud moment to win the prize of the “Silent Seat,” a clever method to keep youthful wiggling and giggling at a minimum.
With their children so involved with craft classes, it was a natural segue for Dick and Colleen to be invited by Jack and Kathy too, this time to enjoy Remembrance and Sunday School meetings at the Chapel. Eventually, they were baptized by Kathy’s father, Eldon Baird, with their brothers and sisters in Christ attending the joyful moment. The family has been attending the Chapel since the early sixties, in fellowship with like-minded believers in the Lord for many wonderful years.
Moving to the Heatherwood subdivision in Boulder County was an easy decision. Dick and Colleen wanted a new house for their growing family. Their son Steve was born shortly after the move to the Chatham home. The house was filled with wrestling boys, barking dogs, and lots of warm memories. In his later years, Dick would be remembered fondly for moving around the backyard pulling weeds, occasionally stopping to look up at the sky each time time a plane “danced across the skies on laughter-silvered wings.” It was a line from his favorite airplane poem, “High Flight,”* a plaque of which he kept on top of his bureau to remind him, we suppose, of his joy of flying.
In his later years, even with the onset of Alzheimer’s, he would reach for his Bible and attempt to read Scriptures, a challenge for him since the disease was moving quickly, taking his ability to read and understand words. Still, his faith was as solid as a rock, and he will be remembered fondly for his stalwart love of Christ, the most important Person in his life.
When Dick was called home by our Lord and Heavenly Father on November 16, 2020, we rejoice that he is now with Jesus Christ, freed from the shackles of this world and the pain of illness. When he accepted the Lord as his Savior, he accepted that God does not always promise an easy path through life, but he knew that God was always beside him, holding his soul in His righteous right hand. Our Husband and Dad trusted the heart of our Father in heaven, and he bowed the knee.
On Find A Grave.
—————————
In the years following WWII, the family moved back to Denver where Dick supported his family by working at the local Piggly Wiggly store. He later took a part-time job as an orderly with Denver’s Presbyterian Hospital while still attending classes at South High School.
At an early age, he was inspired by airplanes and automobiles. Together with his dad, he built a roadster when he was nearly seventeen, and he obtained his pilot’s license in 1955. His love of aircraft was ferocious and Dick was determined to fly. He purchased his own aircraft when he was a young man, a PT-19 followed by a two-seater Ercoupe. He inspired this same interest of flying and airplanes in his own children and grandchildren.
Shortly after his graduation from South High, he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and was stationed and trained in North Carolina. He wanted to become a doctor, and while serving his country, he trained as a surgical technician. But plans change sometimes.
Transferring to the U.S. Air Force (Reserves), he met Colleen over the backyard fence of his parent’s home in Boulder. She was literally the “girl next door.”
The couple was married April 8, 1956, in Pueblo, Colorado, and set up housekeeping in south Boulder, near what was then known as the National Bureau of Standards. It was a modest but newly constructed brick home, complete with limited furniture, a German Shepherd dog named “Duke,” and handmade charcoal gray and hot pink curtains, the colors of the early sixties. It was so empty that the small house echoed. Dick enjoyed pulling Mike and Diane around the neighborhood in a flashy Red Flyer wagon, when he and Colleen weren’t building a cabin cruiser boat in their small one-car garage, that is.
Shortly before he met and married Colleen, Dick purchased property on Sugarloaf Mountain, and divided the acreage between his parents and siblings. “The Cabin,” as it is known among the Lowders’, is still in use, revised and renovated for a new generation to enjoy.
During the time that Dick was waiting for his clearance to start working at Rocky Flats, he was employed with the U.S. Postal Service. When the clearance came through, he worked for Rocky Flats as a metallurgist. He retired in 1993, putting in 40 years of dedicated service during the Cold War. His father Harvey G. Lowder, and friends Lloyd Kneebone, Bud Lambert, and Tom Bell, also worked at “The Plant,” as it was known then, and they were there during the critical Building 771 fire, that crippled production for a time.
As Dick and Colleen’s family grew, the couple moved to Orchard Avenue, in rural Boulder, where they met their dear friends Jack and Kathy Morrow, who lived across the street. The country life was interesting. It involved feeding a flock of rangy chickens left over from the previous owners, (Colleen let their son do the chore), and clearing the half-acre of weeds and rocks for some landscaping. But the joy of drinking ice-cold Rocky Mountain spring water from a well, made it all worthwhile.
With Jack and Kathy living so close, it was an easy invitation for Mike and Diane to join other children at the Boulder Bible Chapel’s craft classes each week. It was a joy for the children to sit mesmerized by Kathy’s uncle, Ken Baird, who drew lavish chalk pictures and wove Scripture stories so thrilling, his young audience felt that they knew Noah personally. It was always a proud moment to win the prize of the “Silent Seat,” a clever method to keep youthful wiggling and giggling at a minimum.
With their children so involved with craft classes, it was a natural segue for Dick and Colleen to be invited by Jack and Kathy too, this time to enjoy Remembrance and Sunday School meetings at the Chapel. Eventually, they were baptized by Kathy’s father, Eldon Baird, with their brothers and sisters in Christ attending the joyful moment. The family has been attending the Chapel since the early sixties, in fellowship with like-minded believers in the Lord for many wonderful years.
Moving to the Heatherwood subdivision in Boulder County was an easy decision. Dick and Colleen wanted a new house for their growing family. Their son Steve was born shortly after the move to the Chatham home. The house was filled with wrestling boys, barking dogs, and lots of warm memories. In his later years, Dick would be remembered fondly for moving around the backyard pulling weeds, occasionally stopping to look up at the sky each time time a plane “danced across the skies on laughter-silvered wings.” It was a line from his favorite airplane poem, “High Flight,”* a plaque of which he kept on top of his bureau to remind him, we suppose, of his joy of flying.
In his later years, even with the onset of Alzheimer’s, he would reach for his Bible and attempt to read Scriptures, a challenge for him since the disease was moving quickly, taking his ability to read and understand words. Still, his faith was as solid as a rock, and he will be remembered fondly for his stalwart love of Christ, the most important Person in his life.
When Dick was called home by our Lord and Heavenly Father on November 16, 2020, we rejoice that he is now with Jesus Christ, freed from the shackles of this world and the pain of illness. When he accepted the Lord as his Savior, he accepted that God does not always promise an easy path through life, but he knew that God was always beside him, holding his soul in His righteous right hand. Our Husband and Dad trusted the heart of our Father in heaven, and he bowed the knee.
On Find A Grave.
—————————