Jack E. Dowd

SIOUX CITY -- Jack E. Dowd, 87, of Sioux City passed away Saturday, Oct. 4, 2008, at a local retirement center.

Abiding by family wishes, cremation had taken place. Private family graveside services will be held at a later date in Memorial Park Cemetery. Arrangements are under the direction of Meyer Brothers Colonial Chapel.

Jack was born April 18, 1921, in Chatsworth, Iowa, to Lloyd and Elvira (Schumacher) Dowd. The family moved to Sioux City while he was an infant. He received his education in the Sioux City Schools, graduating from Central High School with the class of 1939.

He married Margaret Sardeson on July 19, 1941. She died on may 19, 1958. He married Marceille Culbertson-Hoflund on Dec. 31, 1958. She was tragically killed in an automobile accident on Dec. 21, 1979. He married Jeanne Linstrum Bendinger on Feb. 6, 1981.

He started Sioux City Stationary in 1939, which he worked and managed until his retirement and sale of the business in 1983.

He was active in community service his entire life, serving as president of the Chamber of Commerce, Sioux City Lions Club and the Greater Siouxland Merchandising Council. He was a board member of the Sioux City Chamber, Home Federal Savings and Loan, the Better Business Bureau, the Y.M.C.A., Salvation Army, Port of Sioux City River-Cade, St. Joseph School of Nursing, United Way of Siouxland and was campaign chairman in 1976.

He was also on the Sioux City Auditorium and was chairman of the board for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Western Iowa and South Dakota for 36 years. He was a principal in the merger of the Sioux City plan and the Des Moines plan of 1991 and was appointed by the Sioux City council to chair the citizen re-employment committee for displaced Armour employees when the plant closed in June 1965. He also was appointed chairman of the Central Business District committee by the city council in 1965 and served 10 years on the Downtown Development Program. With all the attention he gave outside the stationary business, his employees still named him Boss of the Year in 1965.

He is survived by his wife, Jeanne Dowd of Sioux City; two daughters and their husbands, Kathleen and Bonnie Wates of Hamilton, Ala., and Diane and David Reiff of Fairfield, Iowa; stepson, Dr. Gar B. Hoflund of Gainesville, Fla.; stepson and his wife, Fred and Jan Bendinger; a stepdaughter and her husband, Ann and Peter Hathaway; a brother, Dennis Dowd of Arizona; 12 grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.