Arthur Lowe Obituary 1980

Pakowhai’s oldest resident has died.

Mr Arthur Lowe, Pakowhai’s oldest known resident and a member of the community since 1923, died in Hastings on Friday.

He was 97.

Mr Lowe, who was born in England in 1882, is surved [survived] by his wife and eight children.

He emigrated to Australia with his parents and celebrated his sixth birthday on the day of their arrival.

While a young man he swagged around Australia before joining his father as a market gardener in Brisbane.

In 1904, he came to New Zealand where he worked as a sharemilker on a Taranaki farm before taking a new job as a coach driver and groom in a Palmerston North stable.

At the outbreak of the First World War he returned to Australia and joined the army. He fought at Messoines [Messines] in France.

Mr Lowe was wounded twice while fighting in the trenches and returned to Australia to sell the market garden business he and his father had run.

Mr Lowe met his wife, Annie, during a brief visit to England in 1918. They were married in Palmerston North in December, 1920. Their first two children were born in Wellington where Mr and Mrs Lowe ran a greengrocery in the suburb of Kilbirnie.

In 1923, they moved to Pakowhai where Mr Lowe resumed his chief love – market gardening.

Mr Lowe maintained an active interest in gardening, cultivating a large part of his Pakowhai property as vegetable gardens.