Farmer.
Born at Laura (near Elora), Ontario on 8 November 1872, son of John Wesley Lowes (1828-1892) and Sarah Benson (1830-1915), he came to Manitoba with his mother and siblings in 1879, joining his father who had arrived earlier with three of the children. After working a rented farm at High Bluff for two years, they took up their own homestead on 480 acres in Section 32, Township 9, Range 19 west of the Principal Meridian, in the Rural Municipality of Cornwallis southwest of Brandon. He had a limited education consisting of two months in Ontario, three months at High Bluff, and two summers in a school in Cornwallis. Unable to write his own name when he set aside his school books, he gradually overcame this educational disadvantage through self-study and reading. He helped his father on the family farm until his father’s death, then operated it with two of his brothers. By 1891, he had assumed sole ownership. He grew grain and raised horses.
In December 1905, he married Ida Lauretta “Lottie” Cook (c1880-1909), daughter of W. B. Cook, at London, Ontario. They had two children before the wife’s death due to childbirth complications: Harold Francis Lowes (1906-1983) and Ida Lauretta Lowes (1909-1991). He was a member of the Order of Owls, IOOF, and the Methodist Church. The family homestead in the Rural Municipality of Cornwallis is marked by a monument erected in 1981 at the 100th anniversary of the farm’s establishment.
He died at the farm on 7 November 1953, the day before his 81st birthday. He is buried next to his wife in Brandon Cemetery, as are their son Harold and Marguerite (Buchanan) Lowes.
See also:
Historic Sites of Manitoba: Lowes Homestead Monument (RM of Cornwallis)
1901 Canada census, Automated Genealogy.
Birth and death registrations, Manitoba Vital Statistics.
The Story of Manitoba by F. H. Schofield, Winnipeg: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1913.
We thank Margaret-Ann Lowes Ashton for providing additional information used in this profile.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 7 April 2012
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