Denece Bowden

Denece Bowden died July 13. She was 93.

Bowden was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, Nov. 25, 1927, to Harold A and Julia Hiatt Decker. On June 9, 1949, she married Daloy Carl Bowden in the Salt Lake City Temple. She attended school in Salt Lake City and LaGrande, Oregon. She graduated from Brigham Young University magna cum laude in 1949 and later earned two master’s degrees at St Mary's University, California. She taught at Brigham Young University; as a founding professor at Columbia Basin College, Washington; Milwaukee Institute of Technology and at Marquette University, Milwaukee and California State College, Hayward.

She retired after teaching 15 years for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory where she authored texts and workbooks, including grammar review for technical writers and usage review for engineers. Her specialty was making grammar enjoyable and understandable via schematics and Venn diagrams for engineers at the Laboratory. She was also the author of numerous articles on technical editing and English usage. She presented papers at the annual meetings of the Society of Technical Communication. For several years she taught the grammar sections in summer classes at MIT in Boston and the University of Washington in Seattle.

She had eight children: Dennis (Diana) Bowden of Naselle, Washington; Renee Bowden Ranney (Nelson) of Mesa, Arizona; Gerrit (June) Bowden of Cheyenne, Wyoming; Celeste Bowden of Mesquite, Nevada; Lynette Bowden Cook (Grant) of Lathrop; Eric (Laura) Bowden of Frederick, Maryland; Rochelle Bowden Jue (Ed) of Livermore and Melanie Bowden Newman (Scott) of Monteview, Idaho. There are thirty-six grandchildren and numerous great-grandchildren. Her parents, husband, and sister Beverly preceded her in death.