Ready or Not, Here I Come!

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Sometimes I like to play Hide-and-Seek. It's a pretty predictable game with little children.


I get so frustrated when someone breaks the rules. It's memories of calling the police and frantically trying to remember what a child was wearing, the color of their hair, and distinguishing physical characteristics that have me not a huge fan of the game with medium to larger-sized children.


Finding themselves bored with the game they have randomly quit and fallen asleep in a closet or the top of a bunk bed, hidden under piles of blankets.


Family history is like a great Hide-and-Seek adventure. Other times it feels like Blind Man's Bluff, or Marco Polo!

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Frederick Lester Lowrie was a master of the game in life and death. Or so he has led me to believe. Did he just give up and stop playing? Seems so.

Maybe you could read this with a magnifying glass!

In 1901 he married Ottilie Schweigl in England. He and she raised 4 children for at least 8 years. Every family member that I've interviewed said that he died "traveling the Continent" around 1909. All I know for sure is that by the 1911 census, Ottilie (aka Olga) is still saying she's "married" but her husband isn't on the record. Seems that he found the edge of the world and jumped off.


If he was dead why not just say so? If they divorced, why not record it? What's the big deal?


I have a few more facts which lead me to speculate about a few things. But speculations still need to be substantiated.

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In 1926 he was a passenger  on the "Rochambeau" headed from France to New York. Birth years and place match. Is it the MY Frederick L. Lowrie?

In 1928, two years later he's returning to New York via the "S.S.President  Garfield". Same person as before.

In 1930 he makes his final recorded journey to New York on the "SS Degrasse".


I feel so close.


I think there's one thing Frederick didn't count on. I don't buy the "traveling the Continent" story completely. And I don't give up until every stone has been unturned.

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Some things may stay hidden from sunlight for years. But eventually someone comes along and finds some buried treasure! Today it was I who did the digging and I was pleasantly surprised.

To be continued...