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.
The Curry surname has a rich heritage in Green Turtle Cay (GTC). In the 1930’s William Curry Harllee devoted an entire section in his Kinfolks masterpiece to this family line, tracing back to loyalists during the Revolutionary War. This family tree is massive and branches often are tangled with each other as one would expect in such a small community. My grandfather Howard Lowe descends from the Curry line (one of the GTC’s matriarch’s Binky Curry Lowe), and my grandmother Bessie Caroline Curry Lowe descends from another branch of the Curry line.
Grandma Bessie Curry Lowe was the youngest of five children born to Thomas Wesley Curry aka Pa Wes (b. 1865) and his wife Lila/Lilla Carleton (b. 1866), the daughter of Romelda Jane Lowe from GTC and a Mr. Carleton from the USA. We suspect Pa Wes married around 1883/1884 and over the following 20 years, five children would be born to this union: Eudora Isabel (Aunt Dora) born in 1884 married William Bramwell Roberts; Thomas Herman (Uncle Herman) born in 1890 married Marion Mayfield Gates; Mary Edith (Aunt Edie) born 1894 married Gilbert Robinson Saunders; Emma Louise (Aunt Emmie) born in 1900 married Thomas Hutchins Pinder and Bessie Caroline (Grandma Bessie) born 1903 married Howard Lowe.
Eudora Curry and William RobertsHerman Curry (photo compliments of Amanda Diedrick, great granddaughter)Ronald & Edith Saunders (photo compliments of Mary McCluskey, granddaughter)Emma Louise PinderGrandma Bessie with Ashbourne Lowe and Janet
Over a hundred years later (and with the assistance of technology), the descendants of these five Curry siblings living throughout the Bahamas and the United States are now able to reconnect and share family stories of their ancestors. Future posts will attempt to highlight each one of these siblings. Stay tuned.
The name Wesley derives from Anglo-Norman origins. It means a field to the west (wes = west / lea = field). The name’s popularity increased in the 18th century in honor of Methodist founder, John Wesley. In my family, that name carries great significance. This name given to my paternal great-grandfather and passed down three generations.
Thomas Wesley “Pa Wes” Curry was born in Green Turtle Cay, Abaco on February 28, 1865 to William and Emmaline Curry. (siblings)
He married Lila Carleton, who was the daughter of Romelda Lowe.
Their union produced five surviving children: Eudora Isabel, Thomas Herman, Mary Edith, Emma Louise and my grandmother Bessie Caroline.
My dad John Wesley Lowe recalled that Pa Wes lived on the southern part of the island.
In 1924 and at the age of 21, Bessie Caroline married the love of her life, Howard Lowe. The following year a son was born, John Wesley Lowe. Howard’s life on earth would come to an abrupt end two years later leaving a young widow and her toddler. Pa Wes thought it best to move in with his youngest daughter and thus become a father figure for Dad. He gave his house and land to one of his granddaughters, Tessie Roberts Key. Tessie’s daughter recalls Pa Wes, walking stick in one hand and a lantern in the other, taking strolls just before sunset to visit his granddaughter. She also recalls a huge almond tree in that yard that supported a rope swing, which Pa Wes crafted for Tessie’s children. Dad remembers Pa Wes on occasion smoking a pipe. Miss Bessie’s shop sold tobacco in plugs, and he would buy a portion of a plug, worth about three cents.
Pa Wes displayed excellent farmer skills. As a young lad, I sailed with him to his farmland on the Abaco mainland. He proudly showed me bunches of bananas and fields of pineapples. The lovely odor of ripe pineapples . He also farmed on Crab Cay situated to the north of Green Turtle Cay. He grew melons, cassava, beans and potatoes there.
He told me of an interesting story about his change in plans from fishing to farming. He had fished many years to support his family, but on a particular frustrating fishing day, he decided to end his fishing career. He gathered all of his equipment, a tin can of lines, hooks and sinkers, and tossed it overboard and decided to go into farming.
Journals of John W. Lowe
Map depicting the distance travelled by Pa Wes in his 12′ sailboat between Green Turtle Cay, Crab Cay and the Abaco Mainland
According to Dad, Pa Wes farmed 20 acres on the Abaco Mainland left by deceased son-in-law, Howard to grow bananas and pineapples. Pa Wes used a 12’ sailboat to navigate the hour trip, depending on the wind, to Crab Cay as well as to the Abaco Mainland. Leaving early in the morning, he set sail from Green Turtle Cay to farm all day. To provide relief from the scorching sun as well as inclement weather, he constructed a simple ten by twelve foot shack on the Abaco Mainland farm from materials that he hauled over from Green Turtle Cay.
Around 1940, Pa Wes became very ill. Grandma Bessie sold her house in Green Turtle Cay and moved to Nassau to seek medical treatment for her father. My Dad recalls…
At the age of fifteen, my grandfather, Wesley, became very ill. A decision was made to take him to stay with his daughter, Emmie in Nassau, New Providence. My mother and I went along on the mail boat.
Journals of John W. Lowe
1934 Bill of Sale Pa Wes purchasing land on Green Turtle Cay
Pa Wes died soon afterwards and was buried in the cemetery of the Church of God on Fowler Street. The exact date of death still remains a mystery as well as details on his wife, Lila Carleton. Dad had no recollection of her and could only recall her first name. Pa Wes’ legacy lives on…both me and my eldest son share the middle name, Wesley.
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.
Out Island Boy 