Daniel R. Cowans
Dan Cowans, born August 30, 1922 in Fort Worth TX, died in San Jose on May 5, 2015. A graduate of Sacramento High School (1940), University of California at Berkeley (1943), and UC Berkeley Law School (1950), he served in combat in the Pacific as a Lieutenant and Captain in the infantry in World War II <http://www.legacy.com/memorial-sites/ww2/?personid=174799878&affiliateID=1298> and also served in postwar Japan.
Launching his career as an attorney with Shapro and Rothschild in San Francisco, he met his future wife Diana Weill and married and moved to San Jose in 1955. From 1959 to 1975, he served as bankruptcy judge in San Jose while also teaching at Santa Clara University Law School. He was President of the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges (1968-69), President of the National Bankruptcy Conference, and author of Cowans Bankruptcy Law and Practice (West Publishing, 1963 and multiple editions). Devoted to the notion that effective bankruptcy law makes a society more humane, he wrote the Dischargeability Bill, a reform of federal bankruptcy law signed into law by President Nixon in 1969, and he testified before both houses of Congress, with the assistance of Senator Sam Ervin (NC) and Congressman Don Edwards of San Jose.
After resigning from the bench in 1975, he practiced bankruptcy law in San Francisco, Palo Alto, and San Jose, in the early years of Silicon Valley, a time of numerous start-ups and shut-downs. The first president of Congregation Sinai in Willow Glen, he also co-owned a ranch and vineyard in San Juan Bautista with Mel Cotton and other friends in the 1970s. His passions included his wife, sons, and family, animals, the environment, travel, photography, Indian pottery, fine wine, gardening, and Corvettes.
He is survived by wife Diana; sons Bruce (wife: Deborah) and Jon (wife: Reyther), grandchildren Deena, Aaron, Naomi, Alejandra, and Marcelo; nephew Arlan Weiss and niece Shelley Spilberg (husband: Phil) of Sacramento; and brother-in-law Maurice Weill (wife: Barbara) of San Leandro. He was also deeply grateful to caregivers Kristine Tolbert, Tonya Jacobs, Twila Coursey, and Mayra Quintero.
Graveside services will be held on Friday May 8, 11:00 am at Eternal Home Cemetery, 1051 El Camino Real, Colma.
Donations may be sent to American Associates Ben-Gurion University: http://aabgu.org/donate/donate-in-memory-of
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