Charles Cowherd was the son of a minister, and himself decided in his youth to live a life of ministry. He graduated from Clemson College in 1934, and then attended the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, where he graduated in 1939, and was ordained a Southern Baptist minister. While attending the seminary he proposed marriage to Marian Peeler, a fellow student, who turned him down because she wanted to follow service as a missionary, while Cowherd opted for ministry at home. Miss Peeler subsequently married Reverend Rufus F. Gray, and the two went to China in 1939 for studies at the School of Chinese Studies at Peking, and then moved with the school to the Philippine Islands in 1941. Reverend Gray was killed by the Japanese in 1942 and Marian Gray was interned as a prisoner of war until liberated by U.S. troops in 1945. She spent one month in Manila trying to locate her husband and, when she finally learned of his death, she returned to the United States. Meanwhile, Charles Cowherd had entered military service as a chaplain in 1941, and was stationed in Iceland in the fall of 1942. In July 1943, he was assigned to the 49th Station Hospital in England, and then in October 1944 was assigned to the 79th Infantry Division. He earned a Silver Star in January 1945, and was wounded a second time on March 24, this time severely, and was evacuated for treatment at a hospital in the United States. He was discharged from the hospital on July 20, and having learned of the tragedy that befell the Grays, he went to the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board to learn Mrs. Gray’s whereabouts, simultaneously applying for appointment as a foreign missionary. He finally located Mrs. Gray and the two were married on August 7, 1945. They then went on to be missionaries to China, Indonesia, and Hong Kong.