| It is with great sadness that we at
Last Stand note the August 6
passing of Sheila Rowan, truly a wonderful citizen of Key West and the
world. From the August 7 Key West Citizen: |
Island city will miss Mrs. Peacon Lane
BY MANDY BOLEN
Citizen Staff
The wooden chair toward the front of Old City
Hall normally occupied by the steadfast Sheila Rowan will remain
empty, and her voice of reason, roughened by throat cancer a
decade ago, is silent.
Rowan, a permanent fixture at community meetings and the lead
opposition to the "too-high" Old Town development of Watermark,
died Wednesday morning at Lower Keys Medical Center.
Members of the Key West City Commission referred to her as "Mrs.
321 Peacon Lane," stemming from the frequency with which she
recited her name and address into the record before speaking
about a pertinent citywide issue.
Key West Mayor Morgan McPherson suggested a minute of silence in
memory and recognition of Rowan at Wednesday night's Board of
Adjustment meeting in Old City Hall.
"She was always such a pleasure when she came to speak at the
podium," said Commissioner Bill Verge, who also lives on Peacon
Lane. "She was so reasonable. She framed her comments in a way
that was like, 'Help me understand why you are making your
decision.'ââ"
Rowan's community involvement started long before her family's
1991 arrival in Key West.
"She was a gadfly to the local school board back in Oregon,"
Rowan's son, Jason, said on Wednesday. "She has always been
active in whatever community she lived in."
And there were many.
Born in Greenwich, Conn., Rowan covered a lot of ground — and
water — in her 67 years.
She began her career as a Montessori teacher in New York City
and then in Santa Cruz, Calif., before heading farther west to
Hawaii, where she met Bill Rowan, took his name and shared his
dream of sailing away.
The couple moved to Oregon, and lived on property owned by Bill
Rowan's family while they built their dream, literally. They
crafted a sailboat that became home for them and the youngest
three of their four sons for about seven years.
The family sailed from Oregon and traveled through Central and
South America until their son, Noah, reached high-school age.
"They kind of washed into town in 1991," said Jason Rowan,
Sheila's eldest son. "All three of my brothers graduated from
Key West High."
And Sheila Rowan — reader, gardener, mother, friend — set about
protecting and preserving her new hometown.
"I know I have felt smaller and smaller and increasingly
helpless about inappropriate change overtaking my town," she
wrote in a March 2005 letter to the editor of The Citizen
opposing the contentious Watermark development.
The letter encouraged people to attend a Planning Board meeting
to show their opposition to the project that violated height
restrictions. She wanted the members of the Planning Board to
see a group of people committed to preserving a neighborhood.
"They do care. They are us," she wrote. "This town is ours. We
must help them to stop the steamroller of greed from squashing
us smaller and smaller. ...
"Thank you for taking time out of your daily life to make a
difference for everyone."
Her letter worked, and the developers had to revamp the
condominium project now called Harbor House behind Schooner
Wharf Bar.
"She really, really cared about the city," longtime friend Nancy
Klingener said. "She was the center of a lot of people's lives
in a quiet way."
A celebration of her life will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday
at the Key West Garden Club, in the West Martello Tower.
mbolen@keysnews.com |
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