Betty Dowell was the juggernaut that made Ted Dowell’s knifemaking business move.
Elizabeth “Betty” Ann Dowell, the driving force behind BLADE Magazine Cutlery Hall-of-Fame® member Ted Dowell, teacher, mother, grandmother and friend of the knife community for over half a century, passed away July 2. She was 93.
Most fittingly, she lived long enough to watch on Zoom as Ted was inducted into the Cutlery Hall of Fame June 5 at BLADE Show 2024.
Betty and Ted were married in 1953 and moved to Madras, Oregon, in 1954, where Betty was a part-time substitute teacher and homemaker raising three children: Scott, Lynn and Jeff. The family moved to Bend, Oregon, in 1964, where Betty became an accomplished substitute teacher in the Bend Public School System.
Ted, meanwhile, accepted a professorship at Central Oregon Community College, where he was dean of the mathematics department. He sold his first knife in 1967 and helped found the Knifemakers’ Guild in 1970, along with Cutlery Hall-of-Famer Bob Loveless writing the organization’s bylaws in the process. Ted also later served as Guild president.
Ted went full time making knives in 1974 and started TMD Knives in 1975. That same year the Dowells suffered the tragic loss of their son Scott, 19, in a car accident. Betty took the lead role in getting her family through such a trying time, as well as maintaining the knifemaking business.
As Jeff noted when he inducted his father at the Hall-of-Fame ceremony this past June, “My mom was galvanized and determined to have a family to take care of and a household to run, and she ran every bit of the business. [Dad made the knives] but everything else she did. She attended to every detail of the business. She had two kids to take care of and she had a grieving husband and a knifemaker and a business to support, and she did so for another 40 years.”
In fact, until the Dowells closed their knifemaking operation in 2010, Betty was the rock of TMD Knives, handling all of the purchasing, inventory management, accounting, correspondence, promotions, and travel logistics for the company. Her attention to detail and level of documentation of the business was as comprehensive and complete as possible.
Betty’s work accomplishments at TMD Knives and the Dowells’ ground-breaking efforts in getting the Guild established early on earned her the Guild’s coveted Nate Posner Award in 2015 for support “above and beyond” of the Guild and the custom knifemaking industry.
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