Louise T. McGowan | Museum volunteer, 81

Louise Thomas McGowan, 81, of Villanova, a museum volunteer, died of pancreatic cancer Monday at Lankenau Hospital, Wynnewood.

For more than 30 years, Mrs. McGowan volunteered at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. For several years, she took artifacts from the museum into classrooms to teach children about American Indian and Egyptian art and culture. Until three weeks ago, she volunteered in the women's committee casting department, hand-crafting replicas from the museum collection to sell in the gift shop, her daughter Margaret said.

Mrs. McGowan was keenly interested in ancient Mediterranean and pre-Columbian art and archaeology, her daughter Elizabeth said, and traveled widely in Italy, Greece, Turkey and Central America.

In the 1970s, Mrs. McGowan was a docent in the Second Bank portrait gallery at Independence National Historical Park. She was a longtime member of the Mill Creek Valley Garden Club and an antiques study group cofounded by her mother.

Mrs. McGowan graduated from the Baldwin School in Bryn Mawr and earned a bachelor's degree from Smith College in Northampton, Mass. In 1949, she married James P. McGowan, whom she had met in Beach Haven, N.J., where their families had summer homes. She and her husband were members of the Little Egg Harbor Yacht Club in Beach Haven and enjoyed competitive sailing.

In addition to her husband and daughters, Mrs. McGowan is survived by a son, Peter; a brother; a sister; and five grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. tomorrow at the Church of the Redeemer, 200 Pennswood Rd., Bryn Mawr.