Robert “Bobby” Sidney Dowd, a prominent businessman and local philanthropist, died Monday. He was 80.

By all accounts Dowd, who owned Dowd’s Furniture and Appliance, was a tough and shrewd businessman.

His own father was a commercial fisherman, He wasn’t born into a wealthy family. His success was the result of hard work.

“He was a heck of a businessman. He loved to deal furniture,” said Wayne Dowd, his cousin. “He never fully retired that I could tell, not unless it was real recently. He was a live wire person.”

Wayne Dowd recalls going to Dowd...