Marcia F. Gowen, a former managing director of the Center for Specialty Care, a medical group practice in Manhattan, died of cancer on Dec. 14 at home nearby on East 76th Street. The East Hampton summer resident was 83 and had been ill for nearly five years.
She had been “in love with East Hampton” since spending her first summer here in the late 1940s, said George W. Gowen, her husband of 61 years. Always eager to swim in the ocean, she continued to challenge the waves until her illness made it impossible, he said.
A skillful cook, Ms. Gowen was attuned to the seasons: Spring was for rhubarb and strawberries, summer was zucchini, tomatoes, and beach plums, and fall was apples, cauliflower, and bay scallops. Born in New York on May 22, 1936, to Leo C. Fennelly and the former Edith Buhler, she grew up there and in East Hampton. A graduate of the Convent of the Sacred Heart on the Upper East Side, she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at Manhattanville College in Purchase, N.Y.
A former president of the Garden Club of East Hampton, she was a member of the Maidstone Club and of Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church. In Manhattan, she worshipped at the Church of St. Thomas More.
She was on the board of the Y.W.C.A. Camping Services, and had been a volunteer at Lenox Hill Hospital for 60 years. In addition to her husband, she is survived by two daughters, Cynthia G. Crawford of Southport, Conn., and Lee C. Gowen of Darien, Conn., and by four grandchildren.
A funeral Mass will be said at 2 p.m. on Jan. 7 at the Church of St. Thomas More, the Rev. John Kamas officiating. Memorial donations have been suggested to the Ladies Village Improvement Society, 95 Main Street, East Hampton 11937, or the Garden Club of East Hampton, P.O. Box 879, East Hampton.
