Robert Ernest Rowe was born during the country's centennial, on 11 September 1876, at Cuba, Tennessee, a crossroads on the Chickasaw Bluffs a few miles north of Memphis, the second son of Thomas Granville Rowe and his wife Camillis. As a teenager, he rated a mention in the diary of a neighbor, Lula Stovall, who recorded on 9 Sep 1893, "Ernest Rowe ate dinner with us. Had Irish potato custards. Best I believe I ever made." After growing up on the family farm near Cuba, young Robert crossed the Mississippi to work as a lumberman in Arkansas, along the bottomlands of the great river. There he met Miss Rosa Lee Thomas of De Soto County, Mississippi, who was living with her elder sister, Lovie Harriet, and brother-in-law, Isaac Tolliver Smith, in southern Crittenden County.

Rosa Lee and Robert with young Leo, around 1904.

They were married 5 June 1901 in his hometown of Cuba, but returned shortly to the woods of Pinckney, Arkansas. The first four children were born within a 25-mile radius of where the states of Arkansas, Tennessee, and Mississippi meet: Leo in 1903 in Pinckney, Frankie Love (named for her aunt) in 1905 in Memphis, Harry Leighton in Mississippi, and Robert Junior (called Ernie) in 1908 in Memphis. Throughout his life, he retained the tall, wiry frame seen in a photo of the new family, probably taken about 1904 in Arkansas. They were standing on the porch of a little crossroads general store. It is possible that he was running the store at the time.

A few years later, they left the Delta and moved (along with his in-laws, Isaac and Lovie Thomas Smith) to the high plains at the foot of the Rockies in 1909, where he farmed and worked as a teamster at the lumberyard in the town of Fountain near Colorado Springs.

Seven more children followed. Richard Guinn (named for a maternal uncle) in 1910, Camillis (named for the paternal grandmother) in 1912, Thomas Smith (known as Smith or Smitty in the family but as Tom outside the clan) in 1914, Glenn in 1916, Elton Aubrey (named for a paternal uncle) in 1920, Rosa Lee (named for her mother) in 1924, and finally Jack Dempsey in 1926.

Jack got his name in an unusual fashion. Robert's upright character and quick mind led to his being chosen as clerk at local auctions and fairs. At one such event, he met a local boy made good, Jack Dempsey, a champion prizefighter known as the Manassa Mauler for his hometown not far from Fountain. He was so impressed by the boxer that he named his youngest son for him.

Like most of his neighbors, R.E. raised sugar beets as a cash crop until the Great Depression forced him to sell out in 1936. His daughter, Camillis Rowe Bristow, saved a copy of the flyer.

He and Rosa Lee spent the last quarter-century of their lives in Denver, where he worked as an accountant. They exchanged their farmhouse for a yellow-brick bungalow at 160 S. Bryant Street, where he confined his agricultural efforts to a backyard garden. (Three of his young grandchildren found themselves the objects of his wrath when he discovered them harvesting trender young carrots before their time.)

As the Depression deepened, some of the boys went out on their own, seeking work wherever they could find it. A couple (Elton Aubrey "Bill" and Glenn) were able to get into the Civilian Conservation Corps. The famous CCC was one of the more popular of FDR's emergency programs in which young men were put to work, under the supervision of Army officers, carrying out much-needed conservation projects on public and private lands throughout the country, such as building park trails, replanting forests in burnt or farmed-over land, constructing campground facilities and the like. The enrollees were paid a dollar a day, $30 a month. They kept $5, and sent the rest home to help support their families. Bill was assigned to work with the Soil Conservation Service, and Glenn with the General Land Office (now the Bureau of Land Management), but exactly where they worked I don't know. The Rowe boys were used to outdoor work, but for some of the enrollees from the city, the experience was an eye-opener. Even now, seven decades later, the results of the CCC boys' hard work can be seen in many Colorado parks. For an introduction to the proud history of the Civilian Conservation Corps visit the CCC Alumni page.

(Also among the hundreds of CCC projects was one near Memphis, now known as the Meeman-Shelby Forest, just a mile or so from R.E.'s birthplace at Cuba on the Chickasaw Bluffs, where a grandson enjoyed a few days camping in a state park in 1995.)

Leighton "Harry" and Robert Jr "Ernie" were working in Idaho in the fall of 1935. Harry wrote his mother from Clayton, a town in the Salmon River Mountains north of Sun Valley, that he would probably be moving on to Portland in December. That was the last anyone heard from him. He disappeared completely, and although Ernie, who had been working in a nearby town, searched diligently for his brother, never a trace was found. Harry had a new car, and the family conjectured that he had been robbed and murdered somewhere between Clayton and Portland. His letter was all that survived.

Two of the younger boys tried their luck in Southern California. They recalled camping on the beach north of La Jolla, diving for lobsters and abalone, eating better than most of their countrymen.

When the country went to war following Pearl Harbor, Robert and Rosa Lee sent seven of their eleven children to service. They served in England, Europe, Newfoundland, and the Pacific. It was the custom for families with members in uniform to display a banner in the window, with a star for each serviceman. According to reliable sources, up to five stars could be on each banner. The stars were blue for the living and gold for those who had died. Luckily, all seven of the Rowe children returned, though some had narrow escapes.

Robert died 14 July 1961, and Rosa Lee followed him the following March 29th. They are buried at Crown Hill Cemetery in Denver.