Martha Perry Lowe

The Olive and the Pine

Love in Spain, and Other Poems

After her year abroad, Lowe resolved to put into form a poetic souvenir of her travels. During this time, her sister Ellen married Dr. Edward B. Peirson of Salem, Massachusetts.[2] While Lowe was visiting in this new home, she met the Rev. Charles Lowe, pastor of the North Church of that city. They were married in the autumn of 1857. After a trip in the Berkshires, they settled on the Pickman farm, which belonged to Dr. and Mrs. George B. Loring, and was situated about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from Salem. Mr. Lowe at this time was obliged, on account of ill health, to resign his pastorate at the North Church. Their stay on the farm was of short duration, but they were able to secure a nearby cottage close to the water, which they called "Mill-side", where Mrs. Lowe completed her first book, The Olive and the Pine, or Spain and New England.[9][10] The first part is devoted to Spain, and the latter to New England.[5]

Mr. Lowe soon regained health and strength, after a year of rest and change, and accepted a call to the parish of the First Congregational Society in Somerville. In this city, the Lowes established their first home, building a pleasant house on one of the hills commanding a view of Cambridge and Boston; and here their two daughters, Mary Foote and Jeanie Wood, were born. Mrs. Lowe entered into church work; and she also, at the time of the American Civil War, published a second book, called Love in Spain,[11][12] a dramatic poem. The book also contained poems on the Civil War and on miscellaneous subjects.[5]

Mr. Lowe twice went South during the war as chaplain. He was chairman of the army committee of the Association, and gave his time and strength to the Freedmen's Aid Society and to the Sanitary Commission. On his return, failing health once more forced him to relinquish his charge at Somerville. He then became secretary of the American Unitarian Association, where his services were valuable during one of the critical periods in the history of the denomination. His ill health compelled him to retire from the secretaryship in 1871. Now that this work was finished, the Lowes, with their daughters, went abroad for nearly two years; spending their winters, on account of Mr. Lowe's health, in southern France, Italy, and Spain; returning to Switzerland and England during the summer months. On their return to Boston, Mr. Lowe started a religious magazine, The Unitarian Review, in the interest of his denomination, in which work Mrs. Lowe assisted him. Mr. Lowe's health declined rapidly during the winter and spring, and it seemed advisable to try the benefit of sea air for the invalid. In the month of June, he went with his family to Swampscott, Massachusetts, where, after an illness of two weeks, he died on June 20, 1874.[12]

After the death of her husband, Lowe prepared the Memoir of Charles Lowe, which was published in 1884,[13] a book not only full of interesting incidents of her husband's life, but containing a vivid history of the liberal church of that period.[14] She continued to live in the home in Somerville, devoting herself to the care and education of her daughters. As the years went by, she took a more active part in the work of her church, and in the different organizations to which she belonged in Somerville and Boston. She also continued to werite, contributing notes on "Things at Home and Abroad" in The Unitarian Review, "Gleanings of Foreign Thought" for the Transcript, writing summer sketches for the Woman's Journal, also many poems for different occasions, and memorial verses for the dead.[15]

Bessie Gray ; And, Our Stepmother

The Story of Chief Joseph was published in 1881, a metrical version of the eloquent speech of Chief Joseph, in order to awaken sympathy for the Native American cause. Bessie Grey was a small illustrated gift-book.(Lowe 1891, p. 1) Her last work was a volume of poems, many of which had been printed before, but rearranged and published in 1900, an Easter memorial tribute called The Immortals.[14][16] She contributed often to the journals in her own town,[15] and constantly contributed to newspapers and periodicals. Lowe was frequently invited to read poems on public occasions.[14]

Lowe was one of the earliest members of the New England Women's Club, which she attended regularly for many years, often joining in the discussion at its meetings, or reading a poem at the club teas. She was a member of the Society of American Authors of New York, an honorary member of the Castilian Club of Boston, a member of the Women's Education Association of Boston, of the Authors' Club, the Educational and Industrial Union, and the Unitarian Church Temperance Society. She was a life member of the American Unitarian Association, and at one time the only woman on its board of directors. She was also a member of the Cambridge Branch of the Massachusetts Indian Association, and a director of the Massachusetts Suffrage Association.[17]

In Somerville, she was a member of the Associated Charities, the Historical Society, honorary member of the Heptorean Club, honorary member of the Teachers' Annuity Guild, honorary president of the Suffrage League, and president of the Women's Alliance. She was interested in many private and public philanthropies, advocating the cause of Native Americans and Afro-Americans, and giving her sympathies to all in need, from blind children in South Boston to the famine sufferers in the East.[17]

Lowe, with the aid of Mrs. Maria Theresa Hollander, formed the Woman's Educational Union in Somerville, in about 1878. This was one of the first organizations of women in the city. Its meetings were held once a month, for a number of years, and speakers from Boston and its vicinity were brought before these parlor audiences. Lowe continued to be the president of this society as long as it existed.[17]

During a period of distress in the city of Somerville, Lowe established a bureau to give work to poor women. In this undertaking, ladies met every week during the winter months for a number of years, and the society existed until the need of it was greatly lessened by the formation of the Somerville Associated Charities.[17]

Lowe enjoyed the work of her church, having among other duties taught a class of young women in the Sunday School for many years. At the time of the forming of the Women's National Alliance, the union that Lowe started became a branch, and with the assistance of many women in the parish, it grew to be a large and important organization. Lowe was president of this Alliance during its whole history.[17]

Lowe always had an interest and active part in the cause of women's suffrage and the temperance movement.[14] The Suffrage League grew out of the Educational Union, and Lowe was for some time its president, later becoming an honorary president.[17] In 1881, as an ardent suffragist, at the time when Massachusetts first gave women the opportunity to vote on school affairs, she and others worked unceasingly to help the women of the city to avail themselves of this privilege; and it is largely through her labors that women were at last placed upon the School Board of Somerville.[17]

She was most earnest also in promoting the cause of temperance, speaking often in its behalf before the Alliance in her own church. She felt deeply the general lack of interest which was shown in her denomination. Lowe was not a total abstainer, believing the use of alcohol in sickness often a necessity, but she admonished its use in daily life. She had great respect for the work of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.[17]

• 1859, The Olive and the Pine
• 1891, Bessie Gray ; And, Our Stepmother

• Come, O children, come, and we will sing
• Great Maker, teach us how to hope in man
• Hallowed forever be that twilight hour
• How good it is in love and peace to dwell
• I see it ever there above my head
• Lord, send us forth among thy fields to work
• Sweetly now the day is closing
• Wake, church of freedom, wake

• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Lowe, Martha Perry (1859). The Olive and the Pine ... (Public domain ed.). Crosby, Nichols, and Company.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Lowe, Martha Perry (1867). Love in Spain, and Other Poems (Public domain ed.). W. V. Spencer.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Lowe, Martha Perry (1884). Memoir of Charles Lowe (Public domain ed.). Cupples, Upham.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Lowe, Martha Perry (1891). Bessie Gray ; And, Our Stepmother (Public domain ed.). D. Lothrop Company.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Marquis Who's Who (1899). Who's who in America (Public domain ed.). Marquis Who's Who.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Perley, Sidney (1889). The Poets of Essex County, Massachusetts (Public domain ed.). S. Perley. p. 105.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Printed at the Riverside Press (1903). In Memoriam Martha Perry Lowe, 1829–1902 (Public domain ed.). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Printed at the Riverside Press.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Somerville, Massachusetts (1904). Annual Reports (Public domain ed.). Somerville Printing Company, Incorporated.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Willard, Frances Elizabeth; Livermore, Mary Ashton Rice (1893). A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks of Life (Public domain ed.). Moulton. p. 476.

• Blatt, Martin H.; Brown, Thomas J.; Yacovone, Donald (April 2009). Hope & Glory: Essays on the Legacy of the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts Regiment. University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 978-1-55849-722-1.