Calluses were all that Melvin Lowe knew. He was in the same boat as most of the laborers in East Texas at the turn of the century. His family was not from the upper class, and racially they didn't conform to society's expectations.
As a matriculating child, he was denied a chance to attain a proper education, and had to augment his family's earnings by going to work before he was ten-years-old. As the oldest, he had to work so that his siblings could go to school.
Tensions riled his family after his father left them. His mother remarried. He had to juggle the effects of a sibling rivalry and an aggressive stepfather.
This young Leo showed his versatility, by working in several fields of employment from cotton, to lumber and to ice. World War I broke out in Europe, and while it was still a remote conflict life could go on a usual for him. He got married and then divorced in the interval. He survived his city getting burned to the ground.
He was eventually drafted for Uncle Sam. Trained as an engineer, he served for over a year overseas. He saw Brest and Paris, France, before getting wounded. He sailed home and wanted to use his status as a veteran to launchpad toward social mobility. He remarried. His city went through a week of lawlessness. It also went through a divisive campaign season with both gubernatorial and presidential stakes.
Author, Iethiopia Tafari Lowe traces his great granduncle's journey from his birth in Paris, Texas in 1894 until his decision to move away from there in 1920. An amateur genealogist, Lowe he been researching for this book since 2007, spent a quarter of 2010 studying in Amarillo, Texas, and in 2014 started writing in earnest.
Within its pages, this biography features 40 illustrations and 8 appendices. Over 100 pages of family trees, and unit rosters. One chapter deals primarily with never before published racist violence in Lamar County with original insight and sources.
This is an unforgettable journey through Texas, New York, then embarked on sea vessels, to and from France, to Massachusetts, and home to Texas . For profiles of familiar historical figures such as: Texas Governors James S. Hogg and Pat M. Neff. For ambitious villains and their minions: the Ku Klux Klan, the Whitecaps, the Arthurs, the Hodges, the Smiths and the Vances. As well as unforgettable historical ancestors and characters such as: deaf cousin Aaron Milton and centenarian Charlie Ruth.
So, let us join Corporal Melvin Lowe in France as he prepares for The Return to Paris.
