Kenneth Poe Funeral Services

June 10, 2025

John Kenneth Dowd, junior, 84, of Charlotte, NC, passed away peacefully on June 10, 2025.  He was born on September 3, 1940, in Moore County, NC, to Lacy Catherine Reynolds Dowd and John Kenneth Dowd. He grew up in Stanfield, NC, graduating from Stanfield High School and then Pfeiffer College (University) in 1963. He married Linda Carole McManus of Midland, NC, in 1965 after meeting in high school and courting her throughout their college years.

After college graduation he worked for The Ervin Company in Charlotte and later North Carolina National Bank (Bank of America) where he helped establish their mortgage loan department. In 1971, Ken founded The Dowd Company, a residential construction company, building homes and neighborhoods for families in Charlotte over the next 50 years.

Ken’s passion for building homes began with walking and studying the land, envisioning the best way to position homes for the safest and most beautiful neighborhoods. He equally admired and appreciated his many subcontractors’ skills and expertise, developing lifelong relationships with them and leading to working alongside second and third generations of their families.

Ken’s entrepreneurial drive led him to co-found Harrington Dowd Realty, as well as Group III Design, a home plan service company. Many of the plans Ken drafted himself, and every so often, his Fairview office still receives a request for his home plans someone discovered in a decades-old Country Living magazine.

Ken was an avid woodworker and prized walnut lumber above all other varieties. He built a workshop to house his hobby, complete with a fireplace and rocking chairs. He made many beautiful pieces of furniture for his family from his extensive collection of walnut and wormy chestnut. And perhaps one of his greatest shows of love was building a cottage at Ocean Isle Beach in 1975 for his young family.

As a young boy, Ken’s uncles would take him to Ocean Isle for fishing trips, and he often talked about taking the ferry across to the island to surf fish. He loved the sandy lanes and big dunes, so he selected the island to build the cottage. Those early summers found his wife and daughters lined up to use the one phone on the island, chatting about their adventures and patiently waiting for him to join them on the weekend for fishing, swimming, shelling and fried shrimp.

The island changed as others discovered its treasures, but his love for it did not, welcoming family and friends throughout the years to stay at the cottage and share in his happiness. He taught his daughters to water ski in the Intracoastal Waterway and patiently took anyone who wanted to ski for afternoons on the water. For 49 years, time on the screened porch or in the hammock was his perfect respite.

When home in Charlotte, Ken also loved to garden and was especially interested in English boxwood cultivation, painstakingly and successfully rooting hundreds of boxwoods. He also rooted azaleas and hydrangeas and grew magnolia from seed, but the resident deer herd proved too great a foe for ongoing, successful propagation. Collecting cuttings wherever he traveled, he enjoyed knowing his boxwood collection included boxwood from Charleston, SC, to Mount Vernon, VA, to Deerfield, MA.

Ken was a generous and trusting employer and friend; a caring and patient brother and uncle; a devoted and thoughtful husband, and a loving and proud father. He lived his whole life by the Golden Rule. He always treated others the way he wished to be treated, and he was always content to let others shine brightly, willing to forgo credit and take joy in their successes.

He was immensely proud of his family and grateful for the life they built together. More than a year ago, Faith Williams joined the family to help care for Ken, and they are deeply thankful for her love, nourishment and kindness.

Ken is survived by his devoted family; his wife, Linda Carole, and his daughters, Margaret (Meg) Dowd and Mary Carole Dowd; his brother in-law Bob McManus and wife Judy, and his many cousins, nieces, nephews and great nieces and nephews. He is preceded in death by his sisters and brothers in law, Louise Dowd Lowder and husband Blanton of Albemarle, NC; Katherine Dowd Griffin and husband Donald of Monroe, NC, and Marie Dowd Spears and husband Joe of Mount Holly, NC.

A celebration of his life will be held in the Chapel of Covenant Presbyterian Church on June 20, 2025, at 11 a.m. Donations in Ken’s memory are welcome to Covenant Presbyterian Church and Novant Health’s Nursing Scholarship Fund.

Arrangements are in the care of Kenneth W. Poe Funeral & Cremation Service, 1321 Berkeley Ave., Charlotte, NC 28204; (704) 641-7606.  Online condolences may be shared at www.kennethpoeservices.com.