Margaret Isabelle Roberts was born on January 2, 1925, in Green Turtle Cay, Abaco to George Roland Roberts and Mary Isabelle Weatherford.
In September 1946, she married James Rispah Lowe (1926-1989) from Green Turtle Cay, Abaco. He is the son of William Ludington Lowe and Sarah Ann Isabelle Gates.
Their children included Gail Marsha, Roland James (1949-2021), Gregory, and Pamela.
Margaret Isabelle Roberts passed away on March 2, 2016 (age 91), in Nassau, New Providence.
Dad loved to reminisce of his boyhood days on Green Turtle Cay. He longed for any opportunity to return. In the early 1990s, my wife and I discovered that Disney’s Premier Cruiselines offered an itinerary that cruised the Abaco islands. Their Big Red Boat made stops to Green Turtle Cay, Man-O-War Cay, and Guana Cay.
Twenty years had elapsed since Dad last visited his birthplace. He and Mom Doreen eagerly packed for this memorable journey accompanied by my wife and me. The four of us departed Port Canaveral on July 2, 1992.
After a routine evacuation drill and slide presentation of the upcoming ports, we feasted on Italian cuisine. That evening we scouted around for the cruise director to explain the unique circumstances of their Green Turtle Cay native passenger. We were given permission to spend the entire day on the island instead of the typical shorter excursion.
For over two centuries, Dad’s ancestors called this New Plymouth settlement home. The guided tour by Dad would be the highlight of any vacation to date.
Dad’s boyhood home in the center with the dormer window overlooking the harbour known as Settlement Creek.
As we entered the harbor, Dad pointed to a modest cottage nestled in this seaside community. A simple wooden structure stood full of history and memories. This home had miraculously survived the catastrophic 1932 hurricane. According to Dad, the home was built by his father, Howard Lowe.
The Walter C. Kendrick family
Inside this home a medical missionary doctor, Walter C. Kendrick, guided Bessie Caroline Curry Lowe as she delivered a son John Wesley Lowe – my Dad in June 1925.
As a common safety precaution in those days, the kitchen was detached and located behind the main living structure. An upstairs room with a dormer window overlooked the harbor. Enough space existed to accommodate Bessie’s widowed father, Thomas Wesley ‘Pa Wes’ Curry.
A portion of the property was donated to allow construction of the first Church of God on the Cay (building pictured on the right in the photo above). The first pastor of the church was Dad’s paternal grandfather, John Aquilla Lowe.
During the early years of my life, my father passed away. Mother was now a widow and had the sole task of looking after a little boy who was left fatherless. Pa Wes (Wesley Curry) lived alone and needed assistance. My mother invited him to stay with us. She was the youngest of his four daughters. Her sisters were Dora, Edith and Emmie. Pa Wes had only one son, Herman Curry.
Our house was built by my dad and had a second floor, suitable for Pa Wes. Since the house was by the water’s edge, it was an ideal place for a farmer to have his sail boat anchored nearby.
Journals of John W. Lowe
Dad John Lowe and Mom Doreen Lowe in front of his childhood home.
When the cruise ship tender docked at Settlement Creek, we raced to our first stop, the Albert Lowe Museum. Here we met curator Ivy Gates Roberts and husband Noel Roberts. First cousins Noel and Dad were also lifelong friends. They shared many island memories formed in Green Turtle Cay and later in Nassau. Ivy proudly provided a detailed tour of the museum’s collection and artifacts. Afterwards, she invited us to their home a few doors down for a tasty Bahamian lunch.
Left to Right – John Lowe, Noel Roberts, Ivy Gates Roberts and Doreen Lowe in front of the Albert Lowe Museum.
The next destination was the historic cemetery. Dad desired to see the graveside where his father was laid to rest at a young age of 29. The cemetery revealed generations of ancestors that occupied this island settlement. Dad located the tombstone of Bianca Curry. With a spirited resonance in his voice, Dad recalled how “Binkey” (1801-1860) is considered the matriarch of our Curry line in the Bahamas. He noted that her ancestors emigrated from Scotland to South Carolina. They remained Loyalists during the Revolutionary War who left South Carolina after the war for the Bahamas.
From the cemetery we walked up the hill and the thirty steps that led to the schoolhouse. It was the first time for my son and his wife, but for me it was a flashback of the ten years of my life that I attended this school. Mr. Herbert Roberts was the principal at the time.
Mom & Dad at the base of the steps that lead to the schoolhouse.
Mom & Dad at the schoolhouse on the top of the hill.
After leaving the schoolhouse, we determined to locate my friend Laine Curry. He lived within a stone’s throw from the cottage where I was born. We were the best of friends during our boyhood days!
Journals of John W. Lowe
We found Laine inside the family business, Curry’s Food Store. After he and Dad reminisced of their boyhood days, we enjoyed refreshing treats on that hot summer day. In like manner, we had memorable visits with cousins Chester, Thalia and Pearl; cousins Sidney Lowe and daughter Martha; cousin Danny Albury and retired school teacher Amy Roberts.
Danny Albury & John Lowe
Our last stop was to the modest cottage of Roger and Nell Lowe. We enjoyed their company and the amazing wild boar hunting stories that Dad and Roger shared. The view out their window that faced west across the Abaco Sea to the Abaco mainland was simply breathtaking.
Dad spent the first 15 years of his life in New Plymouth. Around 1940, Pa Wes needed urgent medical attention in Nassau. Widowed Bessie sold the small cottage for 120 British pounds. With her teenage son and ailing father, Bessie boarded the mail boat bound for Nassau. Though Dad had physically left the place of his birth, Green Turtle Cay never left his heart.
During the 19th and 20th centuries, two Scottish brothers, William and Robert Chambers, published a weekly magazine in London. The first edition of Chambers’s Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art circulated in 1832 and was priced at one penny.
Recently I stumbled across an article online in their May 1867 publication. It describes a visit to my Dad’s birthplace in Green Turtle Cay, Abaco, Bahamas. While specific details of dates and passengers on this expedition remain a mystery, the article provides a perspective of the life and culture on the island during that era. My last post, Expedition to Paradise, discussed a similar voyage led by an American team approximately two decades later.
Geographically Green Turtle Cay is small. In this close-knit, maritime community, these guests would not have gone unnoticed. I wonder, Which of my great-grandparents were on the Cay and could have interacted with these foreigners? I searched my family tree. I find all my paternal great-great-grandparents, aged mainly in their forties, were rearing their families on the Cay in the 1860’s: John and Rebecca (Saunders) Lowe; Joseph and Sophia (Lowe) Curry; William and Emaline Curry; and Romelda Lowe Carleton. Several of these names were actual grandchildren of some of the earliest Abaco settlers, including South Carolina loyalists Wyannie Malone and Joseph Curry.
The excerpt from the article is below. I have added selected photographs for a visual boost.
Some thousands of miles across the Atlantic, you come to several green islands, of different size and shape. They are not situated off the stormy and inclement coasts of Newfoundland or Labrader, but far away to the south, where the cocoanut tree ripens its fruit, where the most luscious pine-apples exhale their delicious fragrance, and where the hummingbird finds a congenial home, with a flower-garden to ramble through, and honey-dew to sip. These islands, the smaller of which are called Cays, are situated just off the coast of Florida. The one of which I am about to speak lies off the north coast of the large island of Abaco, which, being almost uninhabited, is very slightly cultivated.
The smaller island of Green Turtle Cay has been settled for, I suppose, about fifty years, and has a population of about a thousand. It is five or six miles long, scarcely anywhere exceeds half a mile in width; is covered nearly all over with dense bush; has a fine natural harbour, protected from all winds; and is itself defended to a considerable extent by reefs of rock, which stem the heavy seas as they come rolling over the North Atlantic. In addition to the harbour just mentioned, there are two considerable inlets or sounds at each extremity of the island, which run in a longitudinal direction, each of them from half a mile to a mile in length.
Situated in nearly twenty-six of north latitude, the island enjoys a very mild winter climate, while its summer is oppressively hot. The means of support and occupation which the islanders in this obscure spot possess, are not so limited as might be supposed, and, in fact, with a little fresh blood direct from England or America, a good deal might be made of the place and neighbourhood. There is abundance of fish in the neighbouring seas; and the weather being almost always fine, and the sea calm, the occupation of fishing can be pursued at all times of the year. There are also lobsters, craw-fish, crabs, and occasionally most delicious turtle. There are no oysters. Prawns, which are caught in such plenty in India, and form the basis of that finest of all dishes, prawn-curry, are not found in the Bahamas. They appear, however, on the coasts of the Windward Islands.
Lobsters are caught in a peculiar manner. They are found in plenty along the side of the inlets, which penetrate the Cays. A boat is rowed along the mangrove-bushes which line the margin of these sounds, as they are called. One man is armed with a two pronged spear; a water glass is used to examine the bottom of the sea; and when a lobster is seen, he is saluted with the prongs, and hauled on board. When the tide is low, numbers are easily speared. Turtle is caught in a similar manner, but without the use of the water glass.
Crawfishermen – oil painting by Bahamian artist Alton Lowe
Besides fishing, however, there is a far more profitable occupation in which nearly every one on the island can take part. About fifty miles north-west, there is a splendid sponging-ground, and several times a year, boats proceed to this spot and return after a few weeks, each boat bringing perhaps from three hundred to five hundred dozen of sponges. These are sent to Nassau, and sold to the merchants, so that a considerable sum of money is periodically divided amongst the islanders, from a source which scarcely any other part of the world is in possession of. I have been informed that Nassau receives thirty thousand pounds a year from this trade.
The water glass is absolutely necessary in collecting sponges, which often grow at a considerable depth. A pole, from ten to twenty or thirty feet long, with a double claw fastened to the end of it, is let down to the root of the sponge, which is torn from the rock. The natives pretend this is very hard work; probably, however, it would not compare with ploughing or other of our agricultural operations. The sponges, when collected, are found to be tenanted by the worm, as it is culled, and must therefore be placed in the sun, to allow the animal to die. Afterwards, they are well washed in water, until all the animal matter is got rid of, and the bad smell dissipated, when they are brought to market. A bead of sponges of about a dozen or more may be bought for three shillings on the island of Green Turtle Cay.
These two branches of trade, with what the soil itself can yield – namely, bananas, sweet potatoes, and perhaps Indian corn – might be supposed to be quite sufficient for the support of the inhabitants, who consist of men of European and African origin, with a few of a mixed race. In addition, however, to these sources of livelihood, the inhabitants can, all of them if they like, grow oranges for the New York market. The land is cheap, and there is no tax on the produce; besides which, government land is often occupied and cultivated without having been bought at all, or any rent being paid. A negro of my acquaintance told me that he occupied in this way a small plot of land of about an acre or two, on which last summer, with the help of his son, he grew three thousand six hundred pine-apples, for which he received thirty pounds. This plot of ground is on the island of Abaco, which the people usually call the Main. It is separated from the Cay by only two or three miles of delightfully calm and clear water. My black friend having acquired so much money for a few weeks work, took, I believe, a long rest; in fact, with the help of fish and molluscs, of which there is great plenty, he had no necessity to work any more for that year.
Fruit is very cheap: one hundred limes were offered me for sixpence, a few months ago. Pine-apples are abundant, and the finest in flavour I ever tasted. The pine-apples are plucked before they are quite ripe, and shipped for New York, which port they reach in perhaps eight or ten days. There they are immediately sold to a dealer, who soon finds purchasers for them. The oranges come later in the season; they are plucked green, and ripen during the voyage.
There are two or three fruits on this island which I have not seen in other parts of the world; one of these is the alligator pear, which is of the shape of an English one, and grows on a small tree. It is not much of a fruit, but is very nice for breakfast in hot weather, when it is eaten with pepper and salt. It is one of those fruit for which one acquires a liking in a short time. It is only in season in the summer. The sapodello is another fruit which is not found in any part of India that I am acquainted with. This is a very nice fruit, und resembles bread-pudding, but is very sweet.
There are so many reefs and ledges, sounds and sandbanks, in this part of the world, that wrecks are considered a regular source of income, and the most profitable of all. In fact, although I resided on the island scarcely six months, there were not less than seven wrecks within reach of our boats. The share for salvage which the natives obtain is about half the value of the goods saved; moreover, these being sold by auction in the town, the inhabitants are able to purchase at a cheap rate many of the necessaries and even luxuries of life. In incidentally alluding to the subject of wrecking, I approach a topic of great importance to the real and permanent welfare of the Bahama Islands. It is a matter which has engaged the serious attention of the present governor, who is most laudably desirous of substituting some other occupation more in accordance with the true interests of the inhabitants, than the precarious and demoralising trade of wrecking; the gains from which are at times so great as to deprive the natives of the necessary stimulus to those industrial pursuits which their social wants inculcate. The certainty of the occurrence of a shipwreck sooner or later, naturally diverts the mind from the subject of horticulture, which ought to engage their attention. The temptation also to theft is very great, and too often yielded to. Numerous, however, as are the moral objections to the practice in question, not less so are the difficulties which stand in the way of its reform.
There are several-light houses scattered over the Bahamas, and no doubt many more are required. Still it should be borne in mind that, to make them thoroughly efficient, the keepers should be placed beyond the temptation of a bribe. A salary of eighty pounds a year, with rations for one individual, is sadly insufficient for such a purpose. When residing in that part of the world, I accidentally heard of a keeper who, in spite of the severe economy inevitable with such a salary, contrived both to drink champagne and amass a fortune of several hundred pounds. One is reminded, in short, of the Frenchman’s stone broth, which proved so delicious a repast.
One of the greatest evils connected with Green Turtle Cay is the painful uncertainty of communication. European letters are received at Nassau once a month by the mail from New York and there they will often remain for ten or twenty days, when at length, after patience is worn out from repeated disappointment, a schooner is seen approaching the island, the letters arrive, but cannot be answered until another mail has come from New York. The natives of the place, however, care very little for this uncertain communication, as they have no friends in Europe, and are not given to epistolary correspondence. They find amusement in their boats and schooners, and their daily round of occupation.
At Green Turtle Cay I made my first acquaintance with the humming-bird. His power of wing is wonderful. You are puzzled to decide whether the marvellous little creature is perched on some small twig, or standing in the air, so still is he, whilst his wings are working with tremendous rapidity. Suddenly, he will tumble two or three feet down, and instantly be suspended in mid-air, his wings giving forth their monotonous hum. Then, approaching a flower, he inserts his long bill, still standing in the air, and having extracted its sweets, darts off in another direction.
In the beginning of February, another pleasing visitor makes his appearance-the mocking-bird arrives. His song is something like that of the thrush. The natives of the Cay, however, do not appear to pay any regard to such visitants; all their interest centres in the sea, and the cry of “A wreck!” will send every man running to his boat.
But the ocean here has attractions of another kind. The Bahamas are celebrated for their shells. Some very fine ones are occasionally found on this island, which entirely put to shame anything of the kind which is found on the coasts of India or England. A week’s sojourn on the Cay, if they could suddenly be transported there, would be an immense treat to the frequenters of Scarborough or Brighton. The variety of bushes (some in flower), ferns, &c, would afford amusement to those of horticultural tastes; while the gyrations of the humming-bird, of which there are several species, would be a perpetual source of delight both to old and young. What a never ending source of interest would be offered by that great treasure-store, the sea! What untiring pedestrians would circumambulate its shores! How persevering would be the idolaters of the little shrines, with their doorways of pearl, and their sculptured ornament, fabricated by the creatures of these clear green waters!
For Christmas my wife gave me the recently published coffee table book Those Who Stayedby cousin Amanda Diedrick. The book is illustrated with historic photos and impressive paintings by Bahamian artist Alton Lowe. A must-read for any Bahamian or guest who desires to drop anchor near this charming fishing settlement village, its narrow streets, clapboard homes and colourful flowers reminiscent of a New England town.
To my pleasant surprise, the author included an excerpt of the Chambers article in her book. She discovered this “fascinating glimpse” in Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald published in September 1867. How amazing that this small, remote settlement on Green Turtle Cay charms lands across the globe, even during the 1860’s!
The unexpected is often more enjoyable than the planned course. Several months ago while working on a project unrelated to family history, I stumbled across the following article published in Raleigh, North Carolina’s News and Observer in June 1886. The location of Green Turtle Cay caught my attention.
A Scientific Expedition
INVESTIGATIONS BY JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY SCIENTISTS IN THE BAHAMAS
A few weeks ago Dr. W. K. Brooks, of the John Hopkins University, and a number of scientists sailed from Baltimore for the Bahama islands for the purpose of making scientific investigations in the flora and fauna of the tropics. The following letter has been received at the university from one of the party, descriptive of the headquarters:
GREEN TURTLE CAY, BAHAMA ISLANDS, June 7 – The unusual advantages which this island offers to biology study are at once apparent. The novel scenes of the richness of the fauna and flora on sea and land, the foreign and primitive ways of the people, afford the most striking contrast to all we have been accustomed to at home. In coming from the North to a country like this, where not only the people in their life and habits belong to another world, but every plant and animal one meets is new or unfamiliar, it is difficult to comprehend the whole from the vast sum of details. Notwithstanding the length of the cruise, few of the party suffered from seasickness, and the monotony was relieved by numerous events of interest, such as shark-fishing, the capture of Portuguese man-of-war, trolling for bluefish and collecting in the Gulf stream. We obtained some interesting fish and crustacean from the floating sargassum or “Gulf weed.”
After leaving Portsmouth, N.C. Tuesday, the 25th, we lost sight of land until the following Sunday morning, when the long-sought coral islands, which were beginning to assume a decidedly mythical character, at last took shape and became actual objects on the horizon. They appeared at first as a dark green line, which a nearer view resolved into great numbers of rocks and small reefs or cays proper, the largest of which are covered with a dense tropical growth and bordered by overhanging cliffs of gray coral rock, against which the white suf is continually dashed, or by long sandy beaches or pulverized coral, bleached to a chalky whiteness in the sun. The mainland of Abaco may be seen from outside as a faint blue band, either at the inlets between the cays or over the lower rocks. Inside the reed the island is approached to within two or three miles; so that its forests of yellow pine, the huts scattered along the shore, and pineapple fields which might be mistaken for clearings in the woods, are readily seen.
The white, calcareous sand which form beaches on most of the islands is distributed over the ocean bed both outside the cays and between them and the mainland, producing on the water a most remarkable and memorable effect. The color of these entire sounds and channels, extending as far as the eye can reach, varies with the altitude of the sun from the richest emerald through innumerable tints to a transparent greenish white. The people call this “white water,” and the depth is singularly deceptive, since the details of the bottom can be clearly discerned in eight to ten fathoms.
Green Turtle Cay is distinguished from many others like it only in having a better harbor and a small settlement. The town is marked by groups of tall cocoanut palms, which may be seen a long way off, and beneath them, thickly clustered together on the beach, are the black, picturesque huts of the negroes. These are thatched with palm, which is fastened down by poles laid on the roof. They have one or two common rooms, without glass windows or chimneys. The cooking is done out of doors in stone ovens or fireplaces. The houses of the white settlers are small wooden structures, of which the one we occupy is a fair sample. It has two stories of four small rooms each. We use the largest room up stairs as a laboratory. You can form an idea of the size of our house and the street opposite when I tell you we could easily jump from the plaza of the second story into our neighbor’s yard across the way. The small size of the streets, which are scarcely wide enough to allow a good-sized team to pass, strikes one as very odd. They are of the gray coral rock, and in the nest part of the settlement are swept scrupulously clean. There are no horses or cows on the island. There is no market, but there are a few small stores, at which sundry articles may be had at a high price. We had much trouble in finding a cook stove, there being only a very few in town. There is no drugstore or physician in the place, and in consequence Dr. Mills has had more patients than he wished. I am told there are about 600 people in the town, about equally divided, I should think, between blacks and whites. The people as a rule do only so much work as is necessary to supply them with food, which is not much. Nothing is cultivated, strictly speaking, on this clay, but imported fruits and vegetables are simply allowed to grow and take their chances with everything else. The thin soil is apparently rich enough for all.
On the mainland of Abaco, however, the pineapple is cultivated on a large scale. Cocoanuts, bananas, sapodillas, are grown on the Cay and are all now in season. The cocoanut, in fact, is in flower and fruit the year round. Oranges, lemons, limes, soursops, pawpaws, figs are also to be had here in small quantity later in the season, but none are shipped to market. The sapodilla is a fruit I have never seen in Baltimore. It resembled a round rusty apple or potato, and is filled with a brown juicy pulp, which is quite sweet and contains six or eight large black seeds. It is not marketable , as it has to ripen on the tree to be good, and does not last long. They are cheap. At Nassau I was told they could be bought for a shilling (12 cents) a hundred. No fruit I have yet seen equals the pineapple. The average price of a good pineapple is four cents.
This island is covered with a low tropical growth of shrubs and climbing plants, conspicuous among which are numerous cacti, palms, and most interesting of all, the American aloe, whose giant sword-shaped leaves and huge flower stalk form a prominent feature in the landscape.
The heat has been rather oppressive, but Dr. Brooks says he likes it. My thermometer has registered 84 degrees Fahr. right along until this morning, when it dropped to 76 degrees, owing to a very heavy thunder-storm we had in the night. Excepting this, we have had very little rain since landing.
The place is commended by every one as being very healthy; far more so than Nassau.
William Keith Brooks was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1848 and died near Baltimore, Maryland in 1908. As professor of Zoology at the Johns Hopkins University, Brooks formed the Chesapeake Zoological Laboratory in 1878. Over the next the next twenty years, he organized expeditions to Virginia, North Carolina, Jamaica and the Bahamas to study zoology, botany and geology.
Doctor Brooks expected all of his graduate students to spend a season or more at this laboratory. He rightly estimated this as the most valuable experience a student of zoology could have, for in this way the student became acquainted with animals under natural conditions.
On May 1, 1886, one such expedition left Baltimore in a small schooner with Brooks as the pilot. The following is taken from a report by Professor Brooks on The Zoological Work of the Johns Hopkins University, 1878-86, published in the Johns Hopkins University Circulars, Vol. 6, No. 54:
During the season 0f 1886 the zoological students of the University were stationed at three widely separated points of the seacoast. A party of seven under my direction visited the Bahama Islands, two were at Beaufort, and one occupied the University table at the station of the U. S. Fish Commission at Woods Hole. The party which visited the Bahamas consisted of seven persons, and our expedition occupied two months, about half of this being consumed by the journey. The season which is most suitable for our work ends in July, and we had hoped to reach the Islands in time for ten or twelve weeks of work there, but the difficulty which I experienced in my attempts to obtain a proper vessel delayed us in Baltimore, and as we met with many delays after we started, we were nearly three weeks in reaching our destination. We stopped at Beaufort to ship our laboratory outfit and furniture, but the vessel, a schooner of 49 tons, was so small that all the available space was needed for our accommodation, and we were forced to leave part of our outfit behind at Beaufort. We reached our destination, Green Turtle Key, on June 2nd, and remained there until July 1st. The fauna proved to be so rich and varied and so easily accessible that we were able to do good work, notwithstanding the shortness of our stay and the very primitive character of our laboratory. This was a small dwelling house which we rented. It was not very well adapted for our purposes, and we occupied as lodgings the rooms which we used as work rooms.
These snippets provide a teasing glimpse into island life prior the turn of the century. What lured Brooks and his team from Maryland to Green Turtle Cay? What other journals exist that document this expedition? Whose New England style cottage provided shelter and served as Brooks’ makeshift laboratory? Puzzle pieces to uncover.
During the 1886 summer of this expedition, my paternal great-grandparents resided at Green Turtle Cay: John Aquila Lowe (1859-1925), then 28 years, and Wesley Curry (1865-abt 1941), 21 years. Most likely they met and gave assistance to these scientists.
In my last two posts, I shared my vacation’s amateur photos in an attempt to capture the beauty that adorns Green Turtle Cay. Molded by the hands of the Creator, this Bahamian cay is blessed with abundant natural beauty. In addition, her architectural artistry is historically significant and charming. However, the beauty that radiates the brightest to me shines from the families that for generations have built this community.
On each visit, I am compelled to walk the cemetery. The blend of old and new headstones remind me of generational families that wove the social fabric of this remote island. Engraved headstones bring flashback conversations with my Dad, John Lowe. He recalled boyhood memories of these family members and friends, who invested freely in his life. The ocean backdrop calls attention to the courage and fortitude of those first settlers who sought freedom on these shores.
As I framed the camera to capture the contrast of this ancestral cemetery with the ocean, a symbol of life, against this ancestral cemetery, I realized that these particular graves in my camera lens had a unique significance. Three side by side graves of three generations…my dad’s father – Howard Lowe (1898-1927); his grandfather – John Aquila Lowe (1858-1925); and his great grandfather – John Lowe (1823-1898).
I placed hand-picked flowers on my grandfather’s grave. Then I stooped to remove weeds inside the grave’s perimeter. The weeds, like death itself, remind me of Adam’s sin curse that we face.
Generational families like mine lived on this Abaco Cay for hundreds of years. With advancements in transportation, the families have now dispersed around the globe. The social fabric slowly unravels. Remnant loyalist descendants continue the legacy and earn a livelihood on Green Turtle Cay.
This November, the Albert Lowe Museum will celebrate its 40th year. Green Turtle Cay native and renowned artist Alton Lowe is the mastermind behind this wonderful collection of artifacts, photos, paintings and writings. The museum was named in honor of his father William Albert Lowe (1901-1985), a renown woodcarver of ship models. My dad and Albert Lowe are third cousins.
My two Bahamas descendent daughters pose inside a museum room beside Alton Lowe’s classic paintings of two girls from the loyalist era, one looks towards the land and the other towards the sea.
We were blessed to spend some time with Alton at his home. His masterpieces depict Bahamian beauty. Alton kindly coerced me to tickle the ivories on his piano.
As we wandered around the New Plymouth settlement, we found Alton’s older brother, also skilled with his hands. Following in his father’s footsteps, Vertrum Lowe, hand crafted model ships for over 30 years. Vert’s finished models are exact replicas of real ships down to the smallest of details. Tucked away in the heart of New Plymouth, his tiny workshop utilizes every inch of space, including the ceiling, to store the craftsman’s tools and materials.
Just down from the museum on Parliament Street, we visited Green Turtle Cay’s Memorial Sculpture Garden. Here an impressive collection of bronze busts by the late James Mastin surround his life-sized masterpiece entitled The Landing, depicting the arrival of the Loyalists.
My eldest son and I proudly stood amidst a row of Mastin sculptures of Lowe patriarchs. Each has a commemorative and descriptive plaque honoring their contribution to the Cay’s history. A tremendous reminder that our legacy is rich and our calling is purposeful.
No trip would be complete without a visit with Dad’s first cousin, Pearl. Her father Osgood and my Dad’s father Howard were brothers. Charming and devoted to her faith in God, she is one of few islanders alive on the Cay that bridge past with present. Like my Dad, her piecing blue eyes gleamed as she reminisced about days gone by.
I did not inherit my Dad’s extroversion and charisma. On this trip, my genealogical passion pushed me out of my comfort zone to the doorstep of a stranger. How do I introduce myself? I thought as my heart raced. “Hi, I am John Lowe’s son.” Again, those six words opened the door (literal and figurative). I’m reminded of Dad’s love for people.
With open arms, homeowner Viola Lowe Sawyer invited my wife and me inside her charming and simple island cottage. We discussed common roots and reminisced about my Dad’s last visit to the Cay in the early 1990’s where a visit to Viola’s parents, Roger & Nell Lowe, was a must for Dad.Dad had many boyhood stories including hunting trips with Uncle Roger. We left Viola’s home blessed. A stranger now turned into a loving cousin.
The list of people, past and present, who forged the culture of this small settlement is long. Today Lowe and Curry cousins earn their livelihood on streets and waterways where mutual ancestors once called home. Their charming businesses include Lowe’s Green Turtle Cay Ferry, Lowe’s Food Store & Gift Shoppe, Lowe’s Construction, Kool Carts, Sid’s Grocery Store, and Curry’s Food Store. Check them out on your visit to Green Turtle Cay!
cred: Pamela Darville
He longed for any opportunity to return. In the early 1990s, my wife and I discovered that Disney’s Premier Cruiselines offered an itinerary that cruised the Abaco islands. Their Big Red Boat made stops to Green Turtle Cay, Man-O-War Cay, and Guana Cay.
He noted that her ancestors emigrated from Scotland to South Carolina. They remained Loyalists during the Revolutionary War who left South Carolina after the war for the Bahamas.
There they are immediately sold to a dealer, who soon finds purchasers for them. The oranges come later in the season; they are plucked green, and ripen during the voyage.
The sapodello is another fruit which is not found in any part of India that I am acquainted with. This is a very nice fruit, und resembles bread-pudding, but is very sweet.
You are puzzled to decide whether the marvellous little creature is perched on some small twig, or standing in the air, so still is he, whilst his wings are working with tremendous rapidity. Suddenly, he will tumble two or three feet down, and instantly be suspended in mid-air, his wings giving forth their monotonous hum. Then, approaching a flower, he inserts his long bill, still standing in the air, and having extracted its sweets, darts off in another direction.
The natives of the Cay, however, do not appear to pay any regard to such visitants; all their interest centres in the sea, and the cry of “A wreck!” will send every man running to his boat.
The variety of bushes (some in flower), ferns, &c, would afford amusement to those of horticultural tastes; while the gyrations of the humming-bird, of which there are several species, would be a perpetual source of delight both to old and young. What a never ending source of interest would be offered by that great treasure-store, the sea! What untiring pedestrians would circumambulate its shores! How persevering would be the idolaters of the little shrines, with their doorways of pearl, and their sculptured ornament, fabricated by the creatures of these clear green waters!
On May 1, 1886, one such expedition left Baltimore in a small schooner with Brooks as the pilot. The following is taken from a report by Professor Brooks on The Zoological Work of the Johns Hopkins University, 1878-86, published in the Johns Hopkins University Circulars, Vol. 6, No. 54:
