Early Life and Education
Donald Dean Owens was born on September 12, 1926 in Marionville, Missouri, the fourth of the five children, and third son of Emery Owens (born June 22, 1889 in Mount Vernon, Missouri; died 1970 in California), a farm laborer who did odd jobs, and who had been a miner; and Mary Elizabeth Russell Owens (born April 30, 1893 in Missouri; died October 1968 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma). His only sister was Neva M. Owens (born 1913 in Missouri), who was born soon after her parents' wedding on August 5, 1912 in Lawrence County, Missouri. Owens' three brothers were Raymond E. Owens (born about 1918 in Missouri); Norman James Robert Owens (born June 14, 1924 in South Haven, Kansas; died June 27, 2004 in Caldwell, Idaho); and Denny Gene Owens (born February 7, 1934 in Carthage, Missouri; died February 22, 2000 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma), who later was a missionary for the Church of the Nazarene in the Philippines for 12 years between 1965 and 1982, where he pastored in Manila, was district superintendent of the Eastern Visayan district and was president of Visayan Nazarene Bible College (1979-1980), then located in Iloilo City; was president of Nazarene Indian Bible College in Albuquerque, New Mexico. and based in Guam as the pioneer District Superintendent of the Micronesia District from 1994.
By 1930 Owens and his parents and three siblings were living on a farm in Marion township in Jasper County, Missouri, near Carthage, Missouri. By 1940, Owens' parents had divorced, and Owens and his mother, and his brothers Norman and Denny, and their maternal grandfather, James M. Russell (born 1862 in Tennessee) were living at 1605 S. Aurora Street in Stockton, California. Owens attended Stockton High School, California, but left before graduation. While still a high school student, Owens indicated that he was converted to Christ in Joplin, Missouri in August 1944, a month prior to his eighteenth birthday.
Owens enlisted in the US Army at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas on January 20, 1945. Owens was stationed in the Philippines and Japan, and was discharged honorably in 1946, having reached the rank of sergeant. During 1946 Owens completed his high school studies through passing the GED test.
Owens indicated that he experienced entire sanctification in December 1946 in Joplin, Missouri.
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