Unlike our friend Bulley John, these guys have been training up for a wooded crime scene evacuation-type scenario.
There are few things more fascinating than a story where one person, after years of living a quiet, uneventful life, wholly similar to those living all around him, makes a sharp left and veers into a world of infamy and mystery.
Today that man is the one and only Bulley John Lowery of Spartanburg, South Carolina.
Red-haired, blue-eyed Bulley John Lowery spent much of his early adulthood like many of his peers — laboring away in the textile mills of the early 20th century Carolinas.
Born in Spartanburg, South Carolina in September of 1890, Bulley John got off to a bit of a rocky start. His mother, Martha Hill Lowery, was the daughter of William Hill and Milberry Bogan (the name I now use when I check in to hotels), both of whom came from a long line of upstate South Carolina farmers.
Around 1888, when they were both about 23 years old, Martha married Charles "Charlie" Franklin Lowery. The couple had at least two children (though they possibly had three more together... we'll come back to that) and eventually settled in Pacolet Township, just south of Spartanburg and adjacent to Pacolet Mills, a cotton mill established in the 1880s.
If you can't experience the still green waters of Pacolet in person, let Carolina Tony give you a virtual tour. But if you're in it for a glimpse of the Pacolet Pony, a statue of a horse, perched on its back legs atop the ruins of a foundation of a former bridge and inexplicably partially enclosed by a piece of fence, you'll have to watch all the way to the end.
By 1910, Martha Hill Lowery was working as a farm laborer in Pacolet. Living with her are two sons, two daughters, a sister, a niece, and two nephews. Noticeably absent from the home, however, is her husband and father of her children, Charles Franklin Lowery.
Martha's census record states she's been married for 22 years, that she's only been married once, and that she was the mother of seven children, five of whom were living at the time.
Charlie does appear in the 1910 U.S. Census, as it turns out; however, he's kind of... sort of... married to another woman and living in another town, about 100 miles south near the Georgia border. Living with him are his... um... well, his wife, Selma, and their six children.
The census states that Charlie and Selma had been married for 12 years and that it was the first marriage for both. Their eldest child, Lee, was 13 at the time.
There are no records that Martha ever remarried, and by the 1920 U.S. Census, she claimed she was widowed, though Charlie Lowery would live until 1935. Their son Bulley John is mentioned in Charlie's obituary as "John Lowery," alongside his children with Selma, though none of Martha's other children are included.
Born in 1895, Martha's daughter Mildred Lowery Sanders' 1972 obituary states her parents as having been "Charles Franklin and Martha Elizabeth Hill Lowery." Martha's son Clarence Lowery, born in 1901, would later go on to marry Ida Guest (just kidding, this is my new hotel check-in name), and was likely Charlie's son, but no records have been found to confirm this. Martha's two youngest children, Lucinda and Ola, born 1904 and 1907, respectively, similarly may have been Charlie's children but that cannot be verified at this time. Daughter Lucinda would never marry and is buried in the double plot next to mother Martha, presumably in what would have been Charlie's final resting place.
Growing up without a father in turn-of-the-century South Carolina could not have been easy. You had your rural poverty, your lack of antibiotics, your burgeoning industrial mill villages creating an exciting new type of urban poverty, and of course all the many, many diseases. Pellagra was still a mystery, people were already fighting back against vaccines, and lurking around the corner in the early 1900s would be the largest and deadliest war yet known to mankind followed by one of the worst flu epidemics anyone had witnessed. Followed by the Great Depression. So, kind of a downer, right?
But back to Bulley John Lowery.
Bulley John married Ida Beulah Scott about 1912 and the couple had two sons, one of whom died at only three years of age. By 1918, Bulley and Ida were living near Tucapau Mills, where Bulley worked. When he registered for the draft for World War I, he was hopeful that his support of his mother and "crippled sister" might help him evade service; it did not.
Bulley John "Please don't make me go over there" Lowery
By the end of September of 1918, Bulley John was headed for Europe onboard the U.S.S. Pastores.
Bulley John's ship, the U.S.S. Pastores outside Quiberon Bay, France in 1918. Courtesy of navsource.org.
In May of 1919, Bulley John Lowery landed at Hoboken, New Jersey and, after grabbing a Cinnabon at the Newport Centre mall, he made his way back to his family in South Carolina, where he returned to mill work alongside wife Ida. For the next few decades, Bulley John, Ida, and their son Paul would go back and forth between farm labor and mill work, trying to make ends meet. His death certificate would later list his occupation as "Farmer & Barber," so in his later years, we assume, he sold you corn and peanuts, and then trimmed a little off the top.
All was quiet on the Spartanburg front and the Lowery household until one spring morning in 1955.
Early in the morning of Friday, May 6, 1955, Bulley John Lowery ran a car off the road. The driver of the vehicle was Woodrow Wilson Biggerstaff, an approximately 40-year-old man whom the local newspapers stated was Lowery's neighbor. The two cars collided, and when Biggerstaff exited his vehicle, Lowery began shooting, hitting him in the leg and chest. Biggerstaff's brother-in-law, Joe Cocker, wrestled the gun away from Bulley John and struck him in the head with a stick. Weaponless, Bulley John fled the scene and headed into the woods. However, having had little prior experience with attempted murder nor, apparently, with sprinting, Bulley John made it approximately a mile and a half from the scene of the crime before he collapsed in the woods, dead.
The Columbia Record, 6 May 1955
A coroner's jury later ruled the death to be caused by heart attack, despite a skull fracture received by Joe Cocker and a ruptured spleen believed to have been caused by the wreck.
The Columbia Record, 7 May 1955
Bulley John Lowery's death certificate. Ancestry.
Woodrow Wilson Biggerstaff recovered from his injuries, served as a Private First Class for the Army during World War II, and passed away in 1989 at the age of 72.
In February of 1968, thirteen years following her brother Bulley John's death, Mildred Lowery's husband Arthur Sanders was shot and killed at his home in Spartanburg. The murder was investigated by local police but no follow-up articles could be found. It is unknown whether or not the shooting was retaliation for Bulley John's attempted murder of Biggerstaff or if the incident was completely unrelated.
To sum up, I guess, eh...
Don't murder people. Maybe write a strongly worded letter or, you know, hit a pillow. Get those big feelings out without, uh... ending someone's life? And...
Cardio is still important, even when you're a 64-year-old farmer/barber. Sure, you've got to do the strength training, keep that lean muscle mass up, especially as you get older, but you never know when you might need a quick getaway, and the heart's gotta be ready.
Comentários