Davenport correspondent sets aside typewriter
If you reside in Davenport, chances are you’ve received a call from Carol Lowery, longtime correspondent for the Hebron Journal-Register. She no doubt wanted to know if you had any news to report, if you’d been doing or had seen anything of interest, or if you were planning an activity and wanted to get the word out.
Lowery, who has been calling the folks of Davenport to find out the latest news since November of 1997, is calling it quits: “Because I have a lot to do,” she said in a recent interview. “I’m 82 years old and who knows how much longer I’ll be here, and I have a few things I want to get gone.”
Like teach her granddaughter how to make an apple pie or simply sit a spell on a Saturday morning without making telephone calls.
“That’s when I collected my news,” she said. “I made my calls every Saturday morning. I think people were getting tired of me calling – there are lots of people who don’t put news in, but there are still many who do.”
Lowery, who still uses an electric typewriter, said she used two principles when relating news in her column. “I never put in anything where I haven’t called the person who the story was about and I never put in anything discussed during coffee conversations or about doctor appointments.”
She started writing for the Hebron Journal-Register in November of 1997, when the correspondent at that time, Leona Meers, became ill. “Shirley Keim and I took over the column,” Lowery said, “and we used our first check to buy something nice for Leona to wear in her casket.” Meers died in April 1998.
Lowery said she and Keim worked together for about three months before Lowery went on her own. “Shirley didn’t care for calling people all the time,” she said, “so I continued on my own.”
A farm wife and mother of two sons, Lowery spent all of her years in the Davenport area and she said she and her husband, Wendell, rarely leave home. “We never go anywhere,” she said, which is why she could make calls Saturday mornings without fail.
She was a school teacher right out of high school, then married Wendell in 1950 before he was sent to Korea. The couple have six grandchildren and one great-grandchild with another great-grandchild on the way.
During the time when she was raising her own two sons, she joined with Nana Ficken in a catering business at Davenport. “We ran a licensed kitchen for 25 years,” she said.
Carol said she really hated to quit not because of the locals, but because of those who live away from the area. “The locals gave me the stories to write, but it was those who live outside the county and out of state, who did most of the reading. They are the reason I didn’t want to stop.
“I am going to miss it, the phone calls, the talks with people, the news they have to share, but I need to take some time for myself right now.”
If you are interested in continuing the traditional column for Davenport give us a call here at the Hebron Journal-Register – 402-768-6602.
In the meantime, we appreciate all that Carol has done for us, her 13-year dedication to a job well done, and wish her the best as she finally finds time to make that apple pie with her granddaughter.
