Leslie Fowler

Leslie was raised in the Quaker tradition.   She attended Meeting in St. Louis, her birthplace. Later, as she was growing up she attended Meetings in Ann Arbor, Michigan; Adelphi, Maryland; and in Tallahassee, Florida.  She was the fifth of seven children born to Margaret Lawrence Fogg and John Major Fowler; two boys and five girls. Leslie finished High School in Tallahassee, and earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Recreation from The University of North Carolina - Greensboro. Leslie met John Mracek while living in Boston where both were employed by Apple Computer. They were moved to Cupertino, California in 1989 and soon married.  As the mother of two boys, Lee Edward Mracek and Maxwell Fowler Mracek, Leslie was delighted to be a stay-at-home wife and mom. Eventually divorced, she remained devoted to her children and divided parenting responsibilities with her ex-husband.

Leslie was of a sunny disposition, always willing to help family members and those in the community. Leslie loved food and cooking, especially healthy, organic, local foods. She prided herself in preparing only the healthiest, most nutritious foods for her, sons Lee and Max. She dedicated herself to her boys and to a variety of environmental concerns that affect our lives. She took her 80 plus year old Mother and her young sons to peace demonstrations in San Francisco, sat for hours at tables gathering signatures against GMO’s and canvassed her neighborhood for worthy causes.  She worked to get a ban on tire burning in her area, and on Atrazine, to save the bees. “Atrazine is banned in Europe!” she would say. On several occasions, Leslie rented a theater to show “Bag-It,” a documentary film against single-use plastics, and to show other films about current important topics. Leslie contacted professors to alert interested students to join her at these movies.  Leslie told us recently that she had stopped mowing certain sections of her lawn for better habitat for all the critters in the grass.

Leslie's transfer of membership to Palo Alto Friends Meeting was approved in January 2008. She wanted her boys to learn about Quakerism and brought them to First Day School. She also served on the Meeting’s Hospitality committee.

The Fowlers are a close-knit group. Leslie will always be sadly and lovingly missed by her family, and by her relatives and by her friends in the Cupertino community.

Written by her family and members of Palo Alto Friends Meeting, September 2014.