Arrangements for the burial service have been entrusted to the Thomas Funeral Home 4520 Salem Avenue.  Online condolences may be sent to the family at www.thomasfunernal.com.

Clifton Rowan, 90, was called home to his Heavenly Father after a lengthy illness. 

Clifton was born in Mexico, Missouri and resided in Dayton for the majority of his life. 

He was a member of the very first class at Dunbar High School. 

After attending Dunbar, he spent 3 years in the U.S. Navy. 

He was employed and later retired from the Liberal Market Distribution Center.  He was also a union member of local 969 and was Steward of Liberal Markets Inc. Warehouse.  

Clifton was an avid and respected chess player and played in tournaments throughout the Midwest.  He also enjoyed tennis and checkers and was a great conversationalist.

Clifton was preceded in death by his parents Dr. Washington Clifton Rowan and Verna Rowan; his loving wife Abigail, his son Washington III; 2 brothers, James and Clarence Edwin and a sister Evelyn.

He is survived by his brother Willard S. Rowan; brothers-in-law Samuel Mikes and Ernest Westbrooke; sister-in-law Pauline Corbitt and a host of nephews, nieces, and other relatives and friends.

Clif Rowan was my close dear friend and I will miss him dearly.  He was like an Uncle to Sharon and I. He was like that for many in the chess community in Dayton, Ohio and beyond. 

There is a young man in California he regularly corresponded with whom he met at the Dayton Chess Club.  They shared an interest in playing chess and in discussing God that made them close friends.  Clif was 80 and the young man was 12.  They both loved the game of chess and conversing about God.

Clif was a tremendously respected chess player.  He was so widely read and his knowledge was so in-depth that chess masters were often required to give credence to his chess ideas.  Clif was a fierce and competitive chess player.  Win or lose or draw, he was always ready to analyze his games in-depth with his opponent afterwards in the search for truth. 

Clif Rowan was an incredibly fine man who happened to play and love chess.  We are all the better for having known him. 

If you have any thoughts, comments, games, pictures or otherwise you would like to share with the chess community about Clif please email them to me at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it   and I will put them together and publish them for the chess community here, on the Ohio Chess Association website, and submit also to USCF.

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