Longtime nurse was professor at Owens

5/16/2003

LAMBERTVILLE - Emilie Louise Bowser, who spent more than two decades as a nurse at Toledo Hospital and as an associate professor of nursing at Owens Community College, died at her home here Sunday. She was 61.

The family did not know the exact cause of death.

“My mother always wanted to be a nurse, from when she was in junior high school,” daughter Debbi Sattler said. “There was never any indecision on that. Maybe it was the fact that my grandmother was ill at times.”

Mrs. Bowser was born in Newark, Ohio, and lived briefly in North Huntington, Pa. She moved in temporarily with her grandmother when her mother became ill with pneumonia.

Mrs. Bowser received a bachelor's degree in nursing from Ohio State University in the early 1960s.

Soon after graduation, she married Gary Lee Bowser, had her first child, and began working at Toledo Hospital in the coronary care department, her daughter said.

“She loved helping people, that's what my mother did, and that's why she loved being a nurse,” Mrs. Sattler said. “She didn't have a lot of money, but she was still making charitable donations to different things.”

Mrs. Bowser was divorced from Mr. Bowser and she took an additional job teaching at Owens Community College about 20 years ago.

She retired from Toledo Hospital after 25 years in 2001, but continued teaching.

“She loved teaching,” Mrs. Sattler said. “If the students were not doing well or if they had to fail, she really hated it. That was very hard for her.”

Surviving are her daughters, Debbi Sattler and Diana Sample; son, David; father, James Drumm; sister, Susan Romans, and three grandchildren.

The body will be in the Farnham Funeral Home after 2 p.m. today. Funeral services will be at 10 a.m. tomorrow in Trinity Episcopal Church in Toledo.

The family requests tributes to the church's Women's Club or the OSU Development Fund for Students of Nursing.