* Uncle Dickie was in the army, though I was a very small child at the time. I recall that Mother and Daddy Groc had a picture of him, in uniform, on a table in their living room on Elm Street, an apartment I think most of you will not remember. A bunch of the aunts and uncles were around, and I looked at the picture and said, “Oh, Uncle Dickie was in the army. Where was he shot?” That occasioned a great deal of hilarity. I don’t know any more about Dick’s military service now than I did then, but he didn’t get shot, thank God. In my defense, who was the only soldier I knew at that time? Dad. Who did get shot.

* It was in that same apartment on Elm Street that mom (Jean Groucutt Lowry) fell, heavily, when very pregnant. I’m not sure which baby she was carrying at the time, but if I had to guess, I would say Mary or Joan. We were there on a late Sunday morning or early Sunday afternoon, and mom went upstairs to use the bathroom. The stairs, as I recall, were somewhat winding and were linoleum-covered. On her way downstairs, she tripped or slipped or something two or three steps from the bottom and broke her shoulder. I remember seeing her lying on the floor in a black and white maternity dress. Isn’t it amazing what you remember? Anyway, the ambulance came and took her to St. E’s, where her shoulder was tended to. Does anybody remember that?

* If my Latin is good enough to read a simple inscription, I can tell you that St.Columba Cathedral was destroyed by fire (incendio destructa) in 1954 and rebuilt (reaedificata) in 1956. Daddy Groc was a volunteer bookkeeper at the cathedral. At some point before the fire–because I remember that it was at the old cathedral, not the new one–he tripped going down the stone steps and broke his kneecap. He was in the hospital for a couple days and walked with crutches for some time after that.

Ah, the memory bank.

Sources:
Charles Lowry, Brooklyn, New York, [e-mail for private use], to Lowry Family e-mail, 2 Jul 2012, “Heath Care Notes,” Local Folders: Genealogy : Bloggable!; privately held by Joe Lowry, [e-mail &address for private use], Sterling, VA, 2012.