Dowell Baten Multer died peacefully at Regal Care of Harwich on Nov. 22, 2021. The cause was Lewy body dementia, his wife Sarah Multer said. Dowell was 88.
Although he was born on June 6, 1933 in Las Cruces, N.M., Dowell spent the first nine years of his life in Grove City, Pa. His mother, Mary, was a piano player and his father, John, a singer. Both were graduates of the New York Institute of Music, which became the Juilliard School, so Dowell was immersed in music from the very start of his life. He became both a singer and a piano player.
After the family moved from Pennsylvania to New York City, Dowell attended a variety of choir schools, notably the St. Thomas School. He also sang in the boys’ choir at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in upper Manhattan. He graduated from Riverdale Country School in the Bronx, but he remained deeply connected to the Cathedral, working on the grounds and returning during his college years to sing in the choir.
Dowell received a bachelor’s degree from the Juilliard School, where he studied piano. After his graduation in 1957, he was drafted into the Army and served for two years as a clarinet player in the United States Army Band. After his discharge he returned to school, earning a master’s degree and then a doctorate in education at Teachers College, Columbia University.
His first post-graduation job was at the State University of New York at Buffalo. There he met the nursing student who would become his wife. Dowell and Sarah married on May 31, 1964. He continued to teach music at SUNY Buffalo until 1968, then accepted a position at SUNY Brockport. His first son, Jeffrey, was born in 1964; his second, Kevin, in 1967; and a daughter, Lynne, was born in 1969. Jeffrey followed in the family tradition by studying at the Juilliard School, but Kevin led the family to Wellfleet.
When Kevin was young, in the late 1970s, he became interested in ham radio and asked if the family could visit the Marconi Station while on vacation. They did, and they fell in love with the area. In 1981, the Multers bought a house on what is now Blue Heron Road in Wellfleet. In 1983, after SUNY Brockport eliminated its music department, they moved to that house.
During his Brockport years, Dowell studied historical keyboard instruments and mastered the art of piano rebuilding. As a professor in the 1970s, he won two arts grants to study keyboard instruments — pianos, harpsicords, and organs — in the museums of Europe and to lead a student group to study historical keyboards in Germany, Austria, France, and Denmark. He and his mentor, John O’Connor, founded the International Keyboard Festival in Brockport, which drew people from all over the world.
When he came to Wellfleet, Dowell was prepared to launch a second career. Once the family settled in, he became a piano tuner and rebuilder and a choir director and organist.
His work involved rebuilding pianos for individuals, although early on he enlisted the help of John O’Connor to restore the historic organ at the First Parish Church in Brewster. He worked in a number of Outer Cape churches as choir director and organist and became a beloved member of the First Congregational Church in Wellfleet.
Dowell and Sarah made many friends in Provincetown, where Sarah worked as a nurse. During the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, they lost many of those friends. At the height of the epidemic, Sarah said, five of their friends died in one day. Dowell honored their memory by providing the music at each funeral.
He is survived by his wife, Sarah K. Multer of South Wellfleet; his sister, Mary Jean Dux of the Bronx, N.Y.; his sons, Jeffrey Multer and partner Eric Casaccio of St. Petersburg, Fla. and Kevin Multer and wife Jodi of Barrington, R.I.; his daughter, Lynne Multer of New Orleans, La.; a granddaughter, Paulina Multer of St. Petersburg; a niece, Anne Seidell of Knoxville, Tenn.; and two nephews, John Multer of South Carolina and Steve Multer of Kansas City, Kan.
Dowell was predeceased by his parents, John and Mary Multer, and his brother, Walton Multer.
The Multer family expressed its thanks to the staff at Regal Care of Harwich for the kind and warm attention they provided Dowell.
A memorial will be planned at a date to be announced.
For online condolences visit nickersonfunerals.com.
