As recollected by or told directly to Colleen Joyce Lowe Fenrich

<font size="4">Summer, 1942 - Mt. Carmel, Illinois

Conversation with my great grandfather, James Nathaniel Dooms on my summer vacation in Mt. Carmel. Most summers my Dad and Mom and me drove to Mt. Carmel for a week and stayed with Grandmother and Grandfather Dooms. Please note that they were referred to as Dooms, not Doom.

Granddad had a butter churn on the back porch. As a child I loved to sit on his lap in a rocking chair and churn the butter. That’s when he would tell me stories, some of them about our family. The story I remember most is a sad one. He told me when he was just a small boy he accidentally shot and killed his mother on Christmas Eve. This is how it happened. Young James had received a rifle as a Christmas gift from his father. His mother, Theodosia Maydwell Dooms, was sitting at a table in the kitchen with a neighbor lady when James came in and pointed the rifle at the neighbor lady. She said, don’t point that gun at me! His mother smiled and said, it’s okay you can point it at me. He did. When he pulled the trigger the gun went off. He didn’t know it was loaded. His mother died on Christmas Day.

From that day until the day he died, he always spent Christmas Day alone in his room. He never got over the grief and guilt of the accidental shooting.

<font size="4">Summer, 1945 - Mt. Carmel, Illinois

Conversation and activity with my great grandmother, Maggie Gaines Dooms one hot, hazy summer week in Mt. Carmel.

I remember the wonderful smell coming from the kitchen early in the morning. Breakfast was a very big event at the home of my great grandparents. There was ham, bacon, eggs, gravy, but best of all was the homemade biscuits. Grandmother made biscuits every morning. They were so light they just about floated off the table. She taught me how to make them, but to this day I’ve never achieved her excellence. She told me she had plenty of practice. Granddad used to manage a flour mill. Every evening he brought home a sample of the flour for her to use to make biscuits the next morning. This is how he judged if the flour was ground properly. She did this every morning for many, many years.

<font size="4">Summer, 1950 - Mt. Carmel, Illinois

Back again for our summer vacation. By this time I was 14 years old and getting bored with family vacations. One day I was sulking around because I didn’t have anything to do. Grandad asked me to go to the smokehouse and get a ham. The smokehouse was an old shed in the back of the property. Ham, bacon and other meat hung there and slowly smoked over a small fire. That’s also where Grandad made some “home” brew. I don’t know what it was, but it sure was strong smelling. Maybe apple jack, a type of strong liquor. I tasted some and it was awful. I didn’t tell Grandad about my sample sip, but he must have known. He told me later, don’t ever go back to the smokehouse again!

While in Mt. Carael we often visited with my great uncles and aunts. Uncle Bus (Carl) and Aunt Hazel. Uncle Lawson and Aunt Mildred. Uncle Bus was not able to see very well and was mostly blind. When I asked what happened my Dad told me the following. Carl (Bus) Dooms was kind of a wild young man, trying new things. One weekend during Prohibition (when drinking alcoholic beverages was illegal) he went to Chicago and drank some “wood” alcohol. The unrefined alcohol was responsible for his blindness. He and Aunt Hazel never had children, but were very serious about religion and the Baptist church.

Uncle Lawson and Aunt Mildred had one son, George Henry Dooms. George married Mary and they had two children and two grandchildren. He is a Youth Minister working for the Baptist church in Evansville, Indiana.

LOWE STORIES, as told to Colleen by her father, John Lowe and aunt Jean Lowe Bradshaw.

My great grrandfather, James Henry Lowe married a woman named Matilda Emaline Carnahan.
They had seven children: Etta, Meda, Stella, Fanny, Floyd, John and Ira.
Etta had three children, Emiline, Henry and Helen. Helen had a child named Barbara. Meda married a man named Truett and had a daughter Elizabeth. Stella had two daughters, Hazel and Mae.

Fanny was married to Andy Froman - he couldn’t read or write - and they had three sons, Leroy, Chester and Virgil. Chester, called Chet, was a “black sheep.” My Dad told me he was too bad to talk about, but that he had murdered someone and then was committed to an asylum for the criminally insane. My Dad said, and this is a direct quote “he was crazy as a shit-house rat.”

John, the sixth child of James and Matilda Carnahan married June. Aunt Jean told me that June was a whore before marriage and John an alcoholic. They had two children, Maxine and Buddy in Peoria, Ill.

My grandfather, Ira Lowe, Sr. He was born in Cynthiana, Indiana. He died very young of pneumonia, at age 36. He was building a big house in Wayne, Michigan for his wife and seven children and working at Ford Motor Company when he caught cold, then pneumonia. The pneumonia killed him quickly. No drugs to cure it in those days.

My Dad says he was a loving, but strick man. He made a birthday cake for each of his seven children every year. It was a big occasion to see father in the kitchen baking a cake. Dad and Aunt Jean both had wonderful memories of their father and the special birthday cakes.

Here’s a story my Dad, John Henry Lowe told me. I’ll call it “The switch!”
Once when he was 10 years old, young “Jay” announced he would no longer do his chores. His father told him he would give him a week to change his mind. The week came and went and Jay still hadn’t done his chores.

His father told him it was time to go to the woodshed for a whipping because he refused to do his chores. As part of the punishment his father told him to go out and cut the switch for the whipping. Young “Jay” went out and got a huge tree limb and dragged it back to the wood shed where his father was waiting. When his Dad saw the large branch, he asked Jay why he cut such a big piece of wood. At which Jay told his Dad to “just kill me and get it over with!” His father laughed so hard he cried. And, my Dad never did get that whipping.

Here’s a recollection about my uncle Charles Floyd Lowe. As a child growing up Uncle Chuck was my hero. He was at our home in Dearborn a lot and my Dad, John Lowe, was like a surrogate father to Uncle Chuck. When I was eight years old in 1944, World War II was still raging. Uncle Chuck joined the Navy and was gone for three years. I missed him and his wonderful sense of humor. He returned in 1947 and brought me some wonderful gifts from China where he had served. A beautiful ruby ring with a silver mounting and a fully hand embroidered silk kimono. I was now eleven years old, but still thought of Uncle Chuck as my hero. I played the piano at his wedding in 1948 and was just a little bummed out that he didn’t wait for me to grow up and marry him!

Here’s a recollection about my uncle Ira Lowe, Jr. As my Dad’s younges brother, it fell upon Uncle Red to babysit me from time to time. Once he and Uncle Chuck were stuck taking care of me at Grandmother’s house in Wayne. I wanted Uncle Red to play catch with me, but he was reading and said, “no.” He refused to pay any attention to me, so I grabbed one of Grandmother’s knitting needles and jabbed it into his leg. It’s a good thing that Uncle Chuck was there to save me from the wrath of Uncle Red. I must have been somewhat of a brat!