John Cowles Jr. / Photo by Gerald Martineau, The Washington Post.
About 1,000 people remembered John Cowles Jr. at a midafternoon memorial Friday. Cowles, scion of the family that once owned the Star Tribune and a noted philanthropist, died in March at age 82.
Longtime friend Roger Hale said he was told not to make Cowles sound like a saint in remarks before the crowd at the Guthrie Theater.
"That hadn't even occurred to me," said Hale, who recalled adventure trips and table conversations that stimulated the sharing of ideas and experience.
"John Cowles was a serious man, but he did not take himself too seriously," Hale said.
The crowd mixed politicians, academic, business and civic leaders, artists, dancers, theater lovers and lots of family. Cowles played a key role in building the original Guthrie Theater in the early 1960s.
Jay Cowles, the eldest son of John and Sage, recalled how his father inhaled information like oxygen. Jane Cowles praised her dad for his work for gender equity, including his early support of the Equal Rights Amendment. He also struck a blow for men over the age of 60, Jane said, when he became an aerobics instructor in the 1980s. Fuller Cowles thanked his father for "letting me know it was OK not to go into publishing and be an artist."
Fuller's wife, Connee Mayeron, said she was most impressed by the way John loved Sage, his wife of 60 years.
