Caroline Ruth Stowe Chamblin

Caroline Ruth Stowe Chamblin, 80, died of health complications from Alzheimer's on Friday, September 27, 2024, in Albuquerque, NM. Services will be at 11:00 AM on Friday,  October 11, 2024, at Memory Gardens Cemetery in the mausoleum chapel.  Arrangements are by Schooler Funeral Home, 4100 S. Georgia St, Amarillo, TX. 

Caroline was born August 23, 1944, in Gatesville, TX, to A.W. and Kathryn Stowe. The family later moved to Big Spring, Brownfield, Raton, and Amarillo. Caroline first met the love of her life, Ed Chamblin, at Brownfield High School in 1959, where she graduated in 1962. After dating for several years, Ed summoned the courage and asked A.W. Stowe for his daughter’s hand in marriage in Raton, NM. Ed and Caroline were married in 1964 and enjoyed 60 years of a loving partnership. In 1962, Caroline enrolled in Baylor University on a music scholarship, beginning her lifelong love of singing and music. In 1962, she entered the Miss Texas competition and was awarded Miss South Plains. After two years at Baylor, she transferred to Texas Tech University in Lubbock, TX, earning a Bachelor’s degree in History in 1966, followed by a Master’s in History from West Texas A&M in 1968, beginning her early career as a middle school teacher in Lubbock, TX. 

In 1969, the couple welcomed their first son, Howard Andrew, in Lubbock, who later graduated from Oxford and Cambridge Universities on Physics scholarships as a student, then colleague and friend of Professor Stephen Hawking. In 1970, Caroline and Ed moved to Amarillo, where she taught history at Amarillo College. After Amarillo College, Caroline worked for the Amarillo Globe-News and became active in local organizations, including the Amarillo Symphony and Rotary Club. Caroline and a few of her friends, including Claudia Stravato, established the League of Women Voters in Amarillo in the early 1970s and pushed for the ERA through that decade. In 1975, the couple welcomed their second son, Jonathan Christopher, in Amarillo, who is currently working as an architect and program manager at Los Alamos National Lab. In 1987, Ed and Caroline moved to Hinsdale, IL. While in the Chicago area, Caroline worked for Dames and Moore, providing consulting services to DOE, FAA, and DOD on projects around the nation.

In 1994, the couple moved to Potomac, MD, and she began work for SAIC. She left Potomac in 1997 to return to Amarillo to be nearer to her parents. While in Amarillo for the second time, Caroline worked for WTAMU and Texas Tech as Chief Development Officer and Vice President of Development, fundraising, and developing many large projects in the Panhandle, including the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center Amarillo in 2002. Throughout her career and with her family, Caroline enjoyed traveling throughout the US and Europe. In 2008, Ed and Caroline moved to Albuquerque, NM, to be close to their son Jonathan, his wife Alicia, and their two boys, Aiden and Finn. Caroline raised and nurtured her two grandsons from birth through high school, instilling a love of music in them, traveling with them, taking them to school, and having them over to her house nearly every day. 

From her early life in Big Spring and Miss South Plains, through teaching, community organizing, pioneering for women’s rights, and a successful career that spanned more than four decades, Caroline lived a good and important life that touched the lives of many people in Texas and around the country. She will be dearly missed. 

She was preceded in death by her son, Howard Andrew; her sister, Mary Edith StoweGalloway; and her parents, Andrew Warren and Kathryn Stowe. Survivors include her husband Ed, son Jonathan, and grandsons Aiden and Finn of Albuquerque; numerous nieces and nephews including Rhonda Galloway Boyce of Austin, Kim Galloway Holston and Mark Galloway, both of Amarillo. The family suggests memorials be to the Albuquerque Youth Symphony or the Andrew Chamblin Scholarship Fund at West Texas A&M University.

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https://www.wtamu.edu/academics/college-agriculture-natural-sciences/inspired-generosity/honoring-endowed-scholarships.html