Lois S. Owen, 87, of Seaside, died Monday, July 18, 2005 in Seaside.

Ms. Owen was born in 1918 to William O. Schwarzwaelder and Ethel Darling in Orange, N.J. She graduated from Maplewood High School in 1935 and from Olivet College in Michigan in 1939. She briefly attended Simmons College in Boston, The New School for Social Research in New York City and Commonwealth College in Mena, Ark., where she met her husband Michael G. Owen, Jr., an artist and sculptor. He preceded her in death.

She was a social worker in El Paso, Tex., when America’s entry into World War II took them to Washington D.C. After the war, they settled in McNary before moving to Corvallis in 1950.

Ms. Owen was a founder of the Inavale School P.T.A. and an organizer of the Linn County Historical Society. She was head librarian of the Albany Public Library when she entered the Graduate School of Oregon State University. She received her Ph.D. in Family Studies from Oregon State University in 1975, then taught Family Studies at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Wash.

Family members said that Ms. Owen poured her life into teaching and influenced several generations of students. They also said that she had a life-long affair with the automobile and the freedom it afforded. Her wanderlust led her to explore every nook and cranny of the Northwest by car.

She is survived by a son and daughter-in-law, Michael and Constance Owen of Cannon Beach, and by a grandson, Michael J. Owen of Seattle.

She was preceded in death by a son, William Stuart Owen.