Arthur Owens

Arthur Melbourne Owens, physician, missionary, scholar, educator, inspirer and dearly  loved husband and father, passed from this life on May 22, 2013. He was 86.

Born September 13, 1926 in Ocean Falls, British Columbia, “Mel”, as he was universally known, was the son of Roscoe Owens, a principal in a logging concern and the former Marie Stickle. After his father was tragically killed in a boating accident, Mel and his sister Mavis were raised by their mother in England, India and southern Africa, before returning to the United States at the end of the second world war.

Educated at Pacific Union College and Loma Linda University Medical School (class of 1955), he began practice in the public health service and then went to Nigeria, West Africa for ten years as a medical  missionary. He then served for 17 years as a family practitioner in Dunlap before returning to the PHS Indian Health Service in Covelo, California. Post-retirement, he finished his medical career with a series of locum tenens assignments ranging from Alaska to Minnesota to the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

Dr. Owens was an accomplished biblical scholar and lay theologian who actively participated in the leadership and stewardship of his local Seventh-day Adventist church congregations.

He is survived by his wife, Luthea (Estey); son, Geoffrey; daughter, Cynthia and her husband Dr. Stanley Hudson and children Daniel and Sarah; son, Gregory and his wife Dixie and daughters Stacy and Lisa; and son, Douglas. 

Gifts in memoriam can be made to the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA).