Richard Dunlap Lownes Sr., 86, formerly of Lafayette Hill, where he operated his family’s funeral home, died Oct. 24 of lung cancer at Peter Becker Community in Harleysville. where he had resided for 15 years.
Mr. Lownes also had served as a Whitemarsh Township supervisor for 11 years, starting in the early 1970s.
Until his retirement in 1992, Mr. Lownes ran the Lownes Family Funeral Home for more than four decades. The business, founded in 1888 as the Dunlap-Lownes Funeral Home in the Fairmount section of Philadelphia by William A. Dunlap, Mr. Lownes grandfather, moved in 1950 to 659 Germantown Pike in Lafayette Hill.
Mr. Lownes son Randall took over the business in 1992, changing the name of the business to its present form, and Randall’s son Wesley is the fifth- generation family member to be involved in the business.
Born and raised in Roxborough, Mr. Lownes graduated from Roxborough High School where he was an outstanding athlete. He graduated from Muhlenberg College, the Northwestern University School of Funeral Management near Chicago, and H.E. Dolan College of Mortuary Science in Philadelphia.
He served during the Korean War in Germany, processing casualties for the Army’s Graves Registration Division.
He was a member of St. Peter's Lutheran Church in Lafayette Hill, where he was a leader and chairman of many turkey suppers over the years.
He also was a member of the Whitemarsh Community Ambulance Association, Barren Hill Volunteer Fire Company, Whitemarsh Jaycees, and the Kiwanis Club of Roxborough, and a board member of the Northwestern Institute of Psychiatry, Visiting Nurse Association of Greater Philadelphia, and the Montgomery County Big Brother Association, which now includes Big Sisters. He was a board member of the Masonic Home of Pennsylvania from 1974 to 1989.
In addition to his son, he is survived by his wife, Nancy Morrison Lownes; sons Richard D. Jr. and Robert S.; a daughter, Ruthann M.; and seven grandchildren.
Funeral services were held Oct. 29 at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church. Memorial donations may be made to the church at 3025 Church Rd., Lafayette Hill, PA 19444. – WF
