Faye Cole Lowry, 90, died November 24, 2018 at her home in Lexington, Virginia.

Born in Lordsburg, New Mexico, on September 22, 1928 to Oliver Preston Cole and Flossie Pettitt Cole, she was the youngest of five children.

Orphaned at the age of five, she was raised and educated in the Masonic Home and School in Fort Worth, Texas. Following high school, she received a scholarship to the University of Texas/Austin, from which she earned a degree in journalism. While at UT, she met her husband of 70 years, Stanley Todd Lowry, whom she married on July 9, 1948.

Faye and her family moved to Lexington in 1959 and bought a small farm near Alone Mill in Rockbridge County. An early advocate of using native plants in landscape design, she created beautiful gardens around her antebellum farmhouse and continued her interest in native-plant landscaping when she planned the garden using secondary native trees and plants to eliminate the need for a lawn at the couple’s house on South Jefferson Street.

For many years, she worked as secretary to the dean of the college at Washington and Lee University and later served as the voter registrar for Rockbridge County. She was an active early member of the Rockbridge Area Conservation Council, serving both as president and newsletter editor, and believed in the importance of land use planning. A woman of strong political opinions and a staunch supporter of civil and equal rights, she was known to make her beliefs known through letters to the editor from time to time.

An avid quilter, she was a founding member of a local quilting group and made numerous quilts for family and friends, one of which is in the collection of the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley in Winchester. For several years, she organized local quilt shows to showcase the work of regional quilters.

Faye loved the natural beauty of Rockbridge County, and her often-expressed wish was to make the world a more beautiful place.

In addition to her husband, Faye is survived by her daughter, Lynn Lowry Leech (Rick), and a son, Timothy Cole Lowry (Diane); five grandchildren, Sarah Todd Williams LaBruce (Laurence), Kate Williams Hurt (Chris), Jennifer Lowry Erbes (Ben), Luke Lowry, Lydia Lowry Spray (Kent), and eight great-grandchildren also survive her.

There will be no funeral, but the family will receive friends to celebrate Faye's life from 1 to 5 p.m. on Saturday, December 1, 2018 at the home of her daughter, Lynn Leech, 6 Westside Court in Lexington.

Memorial gifts may be made in her honor to Rockbridge Area Habitat for Humanity.

Arrangements by Harrison Funeral Home & Crematory, Lexington, VA.