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Re: Remembering A POW Brother

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: June 27, 2003

"Mother recalls despair of son's death in Korea

By LINDA DuCHARME Special to the Reformer

BRATTLEBORO -- On a chilly December morning in 1953, Ruth Fellows and her family buried their son and brother, James, in the Westminster cemetery. The Korean War was over and he had been missing in action for three years and three months.

As the mourning family stood at the grave during the military funeral, and Taps were played, a man asked her husband, "How do you know that's your son?" The father answered, "I don't know, but I have a boy here who lost his life in service of his country and I will honor him."

James Garreth Lowe enlisted in the Army in the summer of 1950, and was sent to Korea, arriving on July 20. Five days later he was reported missing. He was 19.

It would be several years before his body was found. During that time his mother rode a "seesaw" of hope and despair, not knowing if her "son number three" would ever come home.

After the war a number of bodies of American soldiers were located buried in a military cemetery south of Seoul. The remains were dug up and sent to Japan for identification. From dental records it was determined that James was among them.

"They sent me a body" by train under military escort, she remembers. "We had a little funeral in Westminster on Dec. 15," she says softly. "It was very cold."

Ruth Fellows was the mother of 10 children, six of whom served in the military in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. She likes to refer to them by number: James was "number three son," she says. "That's the way Chinese do it and I thought it was a good idea." It was a particularly good idea when there were nine sons to keep track of.

Number one son, Kenneth, was in the Navy in the South Pacific; number two was John; three was James; four was William; five was George who was in the service but never left the country; number six was Richard who was in the Navy and did duty in the Mediterranean; eight was Edward who stayed out of the military; another son was Michael, and then Joseph in the Air Force and stationed in Thailand. Her daughter, Mary, joined the family right after Richard. She was to be daughter number one, and only.

Ruth Fellows was born in Brattleboro in 1906, a daughter of Elbridge and Bessie Knowlton. She graduated from Brattleboro High School in 1924. "Next year is my 80th Class reunion and I want to ride in the Model T," she chuckles.

She did a year of teacher training on Green Street and taught school for a short time in Dummerston Center. It was a "one-room school house with 26 kids in eight grades" and a lot of work.

And she and her husband were adding to their family. "I love my kids," she says with deep affection. "They were all so wonderful."

In 1935 Fellows' parents died and left her small sum of money that allowed her to purchase a home in Dummerston Center that had no heat, no plumbing and no electricity. "It was a lovely house," she said.

Then, after 10 years, her oldest son Kenneth wanted to use his military nest egg to buy a farm in Westminster West. The family bought a dairy farm with 90 acres, a nine-room house, 20 cattle, a barn and a sugar house, for $7,400. But farm life was hard even with all that manpower and the price of milk was low even in those days. The family worked the farm for 20 years

Then came the draft: "You got your letter -- Greetings from the President of the United States -- and you were off." But as they came of age, her boys decided to enlist, three in the Army and two in the Navy.

One son never got to make that choice: William had just graduated from high school when the nightmare of every mother during the summers of the 1950s struck. William had gone to an amusement park with some friends and came back feeling poorly. It turned out to be polio and the young man was so severely stricken that he was confined to an iron lung. He lived in it for three years and then died. The illness had hit him just weeks before the development of the Salk vaccine was announced.

Fellows is a spry and witty 97-year-old. She has been a resident of Eden Park for only a few months but says she's quite happy there. She particularly likes the sing-alongs. "My whole life is music," she says with passion: and then breaks into song, "Kumbaya, my Lord." "Do you know what that means? 'Come by here, my Lord.'" On the wall of her room is a framed photo of her lost soldier son in uniform, with his medals proudly displayed.

She looks back on the times when she played the organ for several area churches, and "earned enough to pay the electric bill." Although raised a Baptist, she is currently a member of Our Lady of Mercy Catholic Church in Putney. She is quite proud of her 14 years performing with the local Senior Singers. "I had to quit when I couldn't drive anymore," she regrets.

At one point Fellows worked as a neighborhood correspondent for the Brattleboro Reformer.

Reflecting on her very full life, Fellows sums the most important aspects very simply, "I've married three times; I've buried three husbands; and I've buried three sons." "