Individual Details

Death

Born in rural Dallas as the youngest of 10 children, Charline Dowda rarely had a toy or doll all to herself during the Depression. When she got older and developed an interest in collecting, antique dolls became one of her favorites since she did not have many as a child, her son, Kim Dowda of Sandy Springs, said. Another difficulty Mrs. Dowda endured as a child was tuberculosis. She spent 2 1/2 years in Battey State Hospital in Rome, where doctors expected her to die from the disease. She survived, and her Depression experiences and fight with tuberculosis made her an outgoing and vivacious woman. " 'No,' was not in our family vocabulary," her son said. The funeral for Charline Furr Dowda, 73, is 4 p.m. today at Sandy Springs Chapel Funeral Directors. She died Tuesday from heart failure at her East Point residence. Mrs. Dowda moved to Atlanta as a child, attending Girls High School and graduating from Brown High School. As a teenager, she served as an air raid warden in her East Point neighborhood during World War II. After high school, she worked for Bell Bomber, now Lockheed Martin Corp., delivering plans to engineers building the B-17s and B-29s for World War II. More comfortable wearing cowboy boots and jeans and driving her four-wheel drive Blazer than in a nice dress and cruising in her white Cadillac, Mrs. Dowda most enjoyed collecting antiques. She collected such off-the-wall items as Toby beer mugs from England, estate quality salt and pepper shakers and blue and white salt glaze pottery. "She'd collect something, find all that she could find, and then she'd start collecting something else," Mr. Dowda said. Most recently she began collecting Olympic pins, attending many of the pin shows held in nearby cities, her son said. For her, part of the allure of collecting was meeting other collectors and making new friends, he said. Fiercely independent and loyal to Atlanta, which she considered "her" city, Mrs. Dowda was never afraid to speak her mind. "She was a spitfire," said a friend, Rickey Brownlee of Jonesboro. "She didn't mind letting you know how she felt, but she always did it trying to help you." Survivors other than her son include two sisters, Erma Anderson of Atlanta, and Dorothy Martin of East Point; a brother, Gary Furr of Smyrna; and four grandchildren.