McDANIEL – Donna L. (Bowen), age 89 of Southborough, passed away peacefully on Tuesday, July 9, 2024, surrounded by family.

Donna’s early life was focused on education. From her days at St. Catherine Academy in Newport, RI to Tufts University (class of 1956), to studying for a Masters in Education in Guidance and Counseling from Boston University, she took those learnings with her to Japan and Germany where she worked as a teacher and guidance counselor for the US Department of Defense Schools. It was during those years that she discovered her love of travel, adventuring all over Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.

Coming back to the US, she began her career as a journalist, writer and editor, primarily at the Middlesex News, with many contributions to the Villager of Southborough, the town in which she lived for nearly 50 years, and for which she was the first female Select-person, elected in 1978.

Music was a very important part of her life, and she was blessed to have been a member of both the Boston Community Choir and Sharing a New Song; a group dedicated to bringing people of different cultures together via song. This brought continued travel, with visits to Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Cuba, and Africa.

As a Quaker for the last 35+ years of her life, she brought her curious intellect and skill in research together as the co-author of the book Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship: Quakers, African Americans, and the Myth of Racial Justice.

She is survived by her sons David Bowen McDaniel of Denver, Colorado and Evan Paul McDaniel and his wife Jessica Haynes McDaniel of Milton.

Donna was the proud grandmother of Kyle and his wife Kira, Katelyn, Chase, Emerson and her husband Jacob, Annie, Sadie, the late Connor and adoring great-grandmother of Nolan.

Memorial service will be held Saturday, August 3rd at the Framingham Friends Meeting, 841 Edmands Rd., Framingham, MA at 10:00 am. Inurnment will be private. Relatives and friends are respectfully invited to attend.

In lieu of flowers, donations in memory of Donna may be made to The Friends General Conference, 1216 Arch St., 2B, Philadelphia, PA 19107 ~ www.fgcquaker.org