Tina Bowen

Tina Bowen passed away on Sunday, April 14, with her loving husband David beside her at their home on Lake Marion in Charlevoix, Michigan. She had finally succumbed to a courageous ten-year battle with cancer.

Christine Marie Hoffmann was born in Rossford, Ohio on the first of June 1951 to parents Thomas and Jeanne Hoffmann, now deceased. A son, Eric Michael Wenger, passed away in 2016. She is survived by her husband David O'Neal Bowen and their daughter Sara Christine Bowen of Tecumseh, Michigan. She is also survived by stepson Steven Bowen (Janice) of Greenbriar, Arkansas, and stepdaughters Shannon Ichter (Carlos) of Katy, Texas and Patricia Cooper of Conway, Arkansas and their families. Survivors also include sisters-in-law Martha Ballentine of Little Rock and Mary Hardin (Lu) of Maumelle, Arkansas. She is also survived by brother Michael Hoffmann (Susie) of Columbus, Ohio and sisters Margaret Madden (Paul) of Pontiac, Michigan and Barbara Hoffmann of Rossford, Ohio, and many, many cousins and relatives.

Tina graduated with honors from McCauley High school in Maumee, Ohio in 1968, and then from Ohio University in 1973, receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry with magna cum laude honors. Later on in her career she also received a Master of Science degree in Environmental Management from The University of Houston.

She joined The Dow Chemical Company upon college graduation, working in laboratory research and development and ultimately landing a customer product development position in the same R and D group with David. That, then, is how they met, marrying in 1983, and they spent their forty-first anniversary this past February.

From her Organic Chemical Group experience, she moved to a Plastics Development Group, and then to a similar position in the Chicago area, following David's leaving Dow for a Technical Director's management position in Chicagoland. She excelled in her work there with I.T.W., but when David's job changed to a different company in Houston, she opted to interrupt her professional career to care for their young daughter Sara and pursue graduate studies at the University of Houston. She then began her new career as an environmental manager at the University of Texas Medical School in Galveston.

Desiring to return to the Midwest, the Bowens moved in 1993 to Rochester Hills, Michigan where Tina served as an Environmental Engineer with NTH Environmental for two years while David began a ten year stint as Technical Director for a national specialty chemical company. Two years later, an opportunity came for Tina to work as an Environmental Manager for Parke Davis Pharmaceutical R and D (later to become Pfizer R and D) and the family moved to Ann Arbor where they lived for nineteen years (minus two years spent in San Diego on a Pfizer transfer). Tina had a stellar career with Pfizer, retiring as Director of Operations in 2008 after managing Pfizer's Ann Arbor physical facilities with a staff of over 300 people. She then worked for another six years in a similar position with the University of Michigan, who had purchased the facilities from Pfizer. Tina's final retirement from U of M came in 2014, when Tina and David moved to their Charlevoix retirement home on Lake Marion.

As was her husband David, Tina was a music lover; she played dulcimers, banjo, and guitar, and for years they enjoyed traveling to music festivals in the U.S., Canada, and Ireland. She loved boating and being on the water; she was raised on the Maumee River, and almost all the Bowen residences were in waterside communities. And she loved gardening, whether as the church volunteer gardener, home vegetable grower, or tender of her greenhouse and seasonal flowers and plants.

Tina Bowen pursued life with passion. She was a caring and generous person. A remarkably talented person. A woman who greatly loved her husband, children, and extended family. And she loved God. And now she is there with Him, with Father and Son.

A memorial service will be held at 12:00 p.m. on Friday, April 26, 2024, at the First Congregational Church in Charlevoix.

Arrangements are in the care of the Charlevoix Chapel of Mortensen Funeral Homes.  Please sign her online guestbook at www.mortensenfuneralhomes.com