Ruby Robieson Bennett - Lowry Tales #7

Chautauqua & Circus in Town

In spite of the fact that our town was very small, we occasionally had a Chautauqua, which was a gathering in a large tent and everyone in town came.

I remember sitting on a plank-like seat and watching the eager crowd watching a fast speaker sell his bottles of “cure-all” liquid. Seems like a lot of sales included taffy wrapped kisses instead of prizes we expected. Many people spent money and gained very little to show for it. I can remember telling Dad how disappointed I was in people doing this. He’d smile and tell me, “Yes, people are like that.”

Circus in Town! Yes, it really happened! I know for certain, because my brother Jim was in his glory and kept a path beaten down from home to where the circus chose to unpack.  It was a small outfit, I don’t remember for sure, but don’t think it was the genuine three-ring type. As pocket money was always scarce, I do not think any of our family attended. But we all watched the parade as the animals marched into town.

Brother Jim instantly offered his services to help out, so was a water boy and really had a workout keeping elephants well supplied. We never heard the last of how many pails he needed to carry! But he was so very thrilled just being there and it must have been one of the highlights of his life.  This was a rare event happening in our small town, and we all responded in some way or another.

The Skating Rink

The area behind our house and across the alley had been a gift to the city from a former Lowry doctor’s wife (Mrs. Ann Gibbon).  It was for many years flooded in the winter by the Lowry Fire Department to make a skating rink.  This was an excellent winter attraction for all of the town’s children. Sometimes it took several floodings to complete a good solid skating area. Often a windy, snowy night would cause a rippley surface and reflooding would be needed.

Oh, how I loved to skate on that rink. I’d skate until my legs turned blue, and remember well a small pair of black skates I wore, until they were much too small.

Living in Lowry almost all of our lives, plus raising our children there, I was overjoyed to be able to watch our own children enjoy the skating rink as they grew up. Being just a few steps from our yard, the girls would lace up their skates in the kitchen and walk over to skate until the floodlights were turned off at night.

Even in our later years, we enjoyed watching the town children skate. Some would even stop and knock at our door, asking for a drink of water (since we were one of the closest and approachable homes near the rink.) 

We were thankful to have shared for so many years in this thoughtful gift to the children of Lowry.

Ruby Robieson Bennett
2001

Thompson’s Hill

Knowing full well this report will all be strange sentences to all but my immediate family, keep reading on. It contains a precious memory to those of us who were there.

Long ago, before Highway 55 was built through Lowry, our road out of town – to Glenwood and all stations east and south – was south bound out of Lowry and eastward, to the best of my knowledge was in time called Old 55.

It still exists as a gravel road over the same area, used every day by farmers whose land is adjacent and runs for miles without too many curves or turns.

About three and a half miles east of Lowry it slopes up a little hill, (trimmed down some in recent years – but still is a prominence), which is clearly visible to the naked eye from here especially on clear days.  It is this curving, grand comma going up the hill that attracts me. This is Thompson’s Hill! Unsung and unheralded – but an important little scene in my history.

Looking at it daily on my walk-jaunts about our town, I stop at a certain spot on the corner of Maple and Bryce Avenues to send my thoughts up that way.  Here I can see and hear Dad driving our Oakland down the hill approaching Lowry. We are coming home from some errand in Glenwood perhaps having spent a Sunday in the City Park, which we often did. We are all there – except brother Jim who usually had his own schedule. Everyone’s laughing and talking all at once – Ken, Clarence, Francis, and Ruby. How Dad can concentrate on steering is something else – Mom is trying to quell the disturbance. Ken probably has been sticking his head out too far and has already lost his cap! Ruby is probably teasing the boys and creating more fuss than anybody. She was oldest and most often the ringleader when it came to nonsense and mischief!

I stand there on my walk and think about all of this, amused, truly carried back, actually making a family visit briefly and come away refreshed and renewed again. As I laugh a little, I’m delighted I, at least, am a Lowry resident and out of this whole noisy group I can every day look out there to the small gravelly comma and instantly be transported back over 70 years. Some feat!

One day Bob drove me out there, just to measure the mileage, just to see it close up, just to glimpse the beautiful view of Lowry from that vantage point. We enjoyed it.

So, on your next visit to Lowry, don’t forget to visit Thompson’s Hill and refresh your memories. Our school bus drove that route the first year I rode to high school (1931) and it would probably have lots of stories it could relate about this, as well.

P.S. Important to insert a note about Dad’s Oakland. Well, to me that car was as long, as huge, and as commanding as any modern day limo! When I view the snapshots of it in reality, I’m amazed at what shrinkage has ensued. But time does take its toll!!!

Ruby Robieson Bennett
October 18, 1994