Father Robert Lowrey, C.S.B. +

Father Lowrey was born on December 19th, 1897. Athletic ability and interest ran in his family: one of his brothers coached the Ann Arbor football team for many years and another brother was sports editor of the Ottawa Journal. Robert was a star hockey player for De La Salle High School and became even more famous as a football player on St. Michael’s College Intermediate Intercollegiate Team, which won the championship twice (1924 and 1925) in the three years he played.

In 1926, Father Robert Lowrey was appointed to St. Thomas High School in Houston, where he taught until 1934, serving as first councillor of the Basilian community during his last two years. He introduced hockey to Houston when he went there in 1926, playing in the city league and coaching the juniors while also carrying a full load of teaching and priestly ministry. The sports editor of the Houston Post compared Father Lowrey’s contribution to hockey in Houston in the late 1920s and early 1930s to Gordie Howe’s efforts to revitalize Houston hockey in the 1970s.

He taught for one year at Catholic Central High School in Detroit, after which he returned to St. Thomas, teaching and coaching there for the next seven years. In 1942 he was released to enlist as a chaplain in the Canadian Armed Forces. He went in with the troops in Normandy, and came under fire. In a letter from May 9, 1945, to Father E.J. McCorkell, superior general, he wrote: “To get as close as possible to the men during action I moved out of Headquarters. … so I was not able to get Mass in every morning even when action was static. Before action I went from tank to tank and heard confessions and gave Holy Communion. With the Moto Regiment I moved from slit trench to slit trench. … no place was safe from shells.”

In another letter he wrote: “I carry the Blessed Sacrament with me when there is a chance to see my men. I go from tank to tank or carrier to carrier and ask for the Catholics. When they were in a resting place one weekend they were continually shelled, so I had to slide into a slip trench with the men a number of times. In one good slit trench I had a dozen men come to me individually for confession and communion. I kept the names, so it was a bit of consolation when I had to bury a few of them later in the week.” He was in Germany for V-E Day, and was awarded the Military Cross for distinguished gallantry in the field. In the citation we read: “He has been a tower of strength to his units, not only as a chaplain but as a man amongst men. … The brigadier remarked … “That man has done as much, if not more, for the success of this show than any other officer under my command.”

Father Lowrey’s priestly zeal never abated. From the time of his release from the armed forces in 1946 until 1974 he engaged in parish work. Daily he was in his confessional, where many sought his advice and absolution. Talking was a compulsion with him, and he appreciated jokes about his ‘motor-mouth’. His compulsion, however, sprang from his love of people, abundantly evident in his visits to the aged at St. Raphael’s Home in Toronto, and in his daily contacts with confreres, parishioners, and students. In 1961 he joined the staff of St. Basil’s Parish in Toronto as assistant, where he remained until his sudden death in 1974.