Dennis Carl Dow
July 2, 1950 – March 15, 2019
Dennis passed away two years ago at Stanford Hospital from complications of an undiagnosed heart condition. He would have turned 70 last year, and though he didn’t like being the center of attention, he definitely would have been had he reached that milestone. Inevitably, someone would have brought up that as a kid, he thought Fourth of July fireworks were for him.
Dennis was born in San Francisco and raised there by his parents, Frances Garcia Dow from Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Harold Charles Dow, an architect, who, as a boy, emigrated from Poland through Ellis Island with his sister Anna. Dennis loved the city as a child and explored it with his friends on his scooter and by trolley and bus. He studied piano and rooted for his home baseball team, the San Francisco Giants. During the summer, he and his sister, Debora, would spend time in Southern California with their Aunt Lil and Uncle Dave, and would also take tr
Styling for the 1958 Pontiac represented a one-year-only model based on the Chevrolet Impala but with much fancier dashboards and interiors. There were only 759 Pontiac Parisienne convertibles built by General Motors of Canada and very few still exist. Top line U.S. Pontiacs were Bonneville models and had larger bodies than the Chevrolet-based Canadian products.
“Aunt Lil would drive the convertible to her job at BC Tel in downtown Vancouver with people following her and always trying to buy the car,” Susie’s husband Pat recalled. “It was always garaged and kept covered. Jim and Lil loved that car.”
Family photos show Jim in the car with the top down and with his beloved big white dog. A special car for special drives and occasions.