Sunday Obituary: Mrs. Lowe worked hard, sacrificed to take care of her own
Sunday, November 30, 2008 12:04 AM PST
By Tony Lystra
Printable version
E-mail this articleFlora Lowe spent nearly three decades caring for her son, but when it was her turn, she was having none of it.
Her oldest son, Bill Lowe, had nearly drowned in a swimming pool in 1971 at the age of 18 and was paralyzed and badly brain damaged. As he aged over 29 years, Flora Lowe kept him in her Castle Rock home, seeing to his every need and forsaking her own.
She ladled each meal into his mouth with a spoon, kept him clean and as happy as he could be.
“I just want to take care of my own,” she said in 2000.
Bill died that year at the age of 47.
But as she began her own decline in recent years, Flora clung to her own independence.
“The thing she kept saying over the last few months was, ‘Darnit, why can’t I get well? I want to get up and do the things that I want to be able to do,’ ” said George Lowe, her youngest son, who cared for her for the last seven months of her life.
“I said, ‘Mama, it’s time to let other people do things now. You need to step back and let other people take care of you for a while.’”
Flora Marie Lowe, 82, died Nov. 23. She was born Sept. 2, 1926, in Seattle to Russell and Ona (Hockett) Drake, and moved with her family to Castle Rock in 1931. She graduated from Castle Rock High School in 1944 and, four years later, married Arthur B. Lowe, who survives her.
The couple had four children.
Flora Lowe’s life was anything but easy. The money from her husband’s job as a timber cutter wasn’t exactly steady, George Lowe said. The family got by with the help of deer the boys shot in the woods, vegetables from the garden and a few cows and chickens raised on their Castle Rock farm.
She worked nights as a nurse’s aide. “By the time we were out of school, she was up, making supper, making sure we got our homework done,” George said.
Lowe, who prided herself on keeping an orderly home, filled the house with the smell of baking and canning. In recent years, Lowe and her husband were always watching two fishing poles, dipped in the Cowlitz River, which ran along the property. They often gave the fish they caught to widows and other who needed them, George said.
Lowe had cancer twice and underwent several surgeries in the ’70s, right around the time Bill had nearly drown. She had a hip replacement in the 1980s and then a stroke in 1998.
In addition to caring for Bill, she also contended with the loss of her son, Gary, to lymphoma in 1995. Her daughter, Cheryl Lowe, had a cancerous brain tumor removed in the early 1990s. George said he had melanoma in 1990.
After Flora’s stroke, George said, she kept trying to cook, but it didn’t always go right. Her children reassured her that it still tasted better than anything bought from the store.
Years later, her granddaughters, whom she taught her recipes, would bake for her —- lemon meringue, pecan and pumpkin pies.
“And they did a good job, too,” George said. “She taught them well.”
As it became clear earlier this month that Lowe’s health was declining, her 19-year-old granddaughter, Vivienne Law, who was engaged and planning her wedding, decided to push up the date. Law, whose parents are George and Lisa Law, didn’t want her grandmother to miss the special day.
“She said, ‘Tell Grandma to hang on,’ ” Lisa Lowe recalled. “‘We’re going to be there Saturday. Make sure there’s a preacher around.’ ”
As the wedding approached, Flora became increasingly excited. “She’d say, ‘What’s the news about the wedding? What have you heard today? What colors is she going to have? What is she going to wear? What am I going to wear?’ ”
Vivienne and her husband, whose name is also George, were married
Nov. 15 in Flora’s back yard. Flora, Vivienne said, sat in the front row, wrapped in blankets.
George Lowe said Flora had been so deaf in her later years that “she couldn’t hear thunder.” And yet she didn’t wear her hearing aids that day and heard everyone just fine.
But her health began sliding quickly in the hours following the ceremony, George said. She was gone eight days later.
The wedding, said Vivienne, who lives in Redmond, “gave her a sense of accomplishment.”
“She’s seen another kid, another grandkid, married off and taken care of,” she said.
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