By Randy Evans and Gary Scrhrumm for The Sarnia Journal
Extraordinary lives are always worth telling.
Emma Matilda Wood was born in 1883 to Elgin and Mary Anne Wood (nee Rowe) of Sarnia, Ontario, Canada. On the strength of the families’ Front St. fruit and vegetable business Miss Wood and her four siblings grew up in relative affluence whether at the 221 College Street family home or on the shores of Lake Huron at the family cottage on Woodrowe Beach.
Her early education was obtained in the public schools of Sarnia and at the Sarnia Collegiate Institute. After that, she graduated from the Sarnia Business College. Later, she studied at the Ontario Ladies College (now Trafalgar Castle School) in Whitby, Ontario where she displayed an aptitude for art. She had considerable talent at drawing and painting and was the gold medalist for her graduating year in 1903.
Post school Miss Wood opened up an art studio in Sarnia but eventually gave this up for the higher appeal of a life of service in the nursing profession. Choosing to leave her hometown Emma decided to take her training in the United States. In 1910 she graduated from the prestigious Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, at Baltimore, Maryland.
With credentials now in hand the now the next year was spent in Pittsburgh, Pa. at a tubercular hospital administering special service work among the poor of the city. Leaving Pittsburgh, she spent three years at the Texas Baptist Memorial Sanitarium. This experience was followed by a year in New York City, where she took a course at Columbia University and at the same time lectured to the nurses there.
It would be at this juncture of her life that World War One would impact Ms. Wood in a most meaningful way.
As the Great War drew down to a close Eastern Europe was in crisis. The old order of the Ottoman Empire and Imperial Russia had collapsed. Even after the November, 1918 Armistice the consequences of the Great War continued to resonate in the form of armed conflict and political revolutions. Hundreds of thousands of Russian and Armenian refugees and orphans were streaming into the region. Serious poverty, human need, political instability and danger persisted in this part of the world.
As a measure of the now 34 year old woman, Nurse Emma Wood left for this region in 1917. Her first duties were as chief nurse for the Armenian Relief Fund Association of Canada. Subsequently she moved on to the American Near East Relief Organization where she had supervision of its entire nursing staff in Antolia, Transcaucasia, Syria, Persia, and Palestine.
Initial postings placed the Sarnian in Palestine directing a small hospital for refugees in Ramleh. Thereafter she moved on to the Red Cross Hospital in Jerusalem. For seven months in the Holy City, Emma Wood was in charge of the hospital’s surgical department, dispensary and equipment logistics. All such duties were carried out at the invitation and under the military protection of the post War occupying British Expeditionary Forces.
From Jerusalem Ms. Woods was posted to Baku, Azerbaijan. This relief enterprise came to an end in April, 1920 when the Sarnia nurse found herself fleeing an invasion of Russian Bolshevik troops intent on seizing the area for the new Russian Communist revolution.
Her successful escape led Miss Wood to Constantinople where for the next three years under the protection of Allied occupying forces she acted as supervisor of nurses for the Near East Relief Group. Additionally she was Director that city’s Near Eastern Relief Hospital for Tubercular Children. At this time the relief activities were very pressing as military operations of the Greeks against the Turks resulted in a huge influx of refugees, all in need of food, clothing and medical care.
As if this circumstance was not enough, things became worse with the collapse of General Pyort Wrangle’s anti-Bolshevik White Army in the Crimea. From this a further one hundred thousand Russians refugees were added to the burden of the relief workers.
In September, 1922 approximately 2,000 orphans were saved from a Turkish led slaughter of the residents of Smyrna, Greece at the end of the Greco-Turkish War. The children were taken to the Near East Relief facilities on the undefended island of Corfu, Greece.
Miss Wood was placed in charge of the orphanage and a related infirmary. Ironically the orphanage was set up in The Archilleon, the summer palace of the now infamous WWI Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. Displaying her sense of humour Miss Wood wrote of this ironic situation “that if the ex-Kaiser wished to return to his beautiful summer palace, he was quite welcome to come as an orphan willing to learn a useful trade, but not otherwise”.
It was also in Corfu that Wood became engaged to Stephen Lowe a Colonel in the U.S. Army seconded to assist non-militarily in the relief efforts. Unfortunately a postponement of the nuptials was required for on its scheduled date of August 31, 1923 the Italian Navy of Benito Mussolini bombarded the island including the orphanage. Amongst the victims 16 orphaned children died from Italian shellfire, shrapnel and machine gun projectiles.
For the next month the orphanage and medical stations operated under an uneasy truce arranged by Colonel Lowe with the occupying Italian forces.
When freedom was gained, Colonel Lowe and Nurse Wood left Corfu, got married in Athens on September 3rd, 1923 and continued their humanitarian work at the Greece. Mrs. Wood Lowe’s devotion to those efforts and the resulting esteem was the subject of the following report:
“When the Russian and Armenian refugees were pouring into the country Mrs. Lowe met all of the boats which were full of men and women dying from typhus and cholera. She arranged hospitals for all these people and personally directed all the relief work in the island. Today she has become a sort of legendary figure and is often called “the idol of Greece.” Whenever she visits Athens she is met by a deputation from the government who extended to her the welcome of the city.” Sarnia Observer, July 24, 1924.
In the mid 1920’s the couple returned to the United States taking up residency resided in St. Louis, Missouri. Lowe remained in the Army and upon his retirement on December 19th, 1935 was awarded the State Medal for Meritorious Service. By then he had attained the lofty rank of Brigadier General.
Around 1941 the couple moved to Sarnia. The General died in June, 1945. Emma remained in Sarnia until her death in 1969 at the age of 86.
In her obituary, it stated that Mrs. Wood Lowe had been awarded the prestigious Croix de Guerre for her overseas service.
Both Stephen and Emma Lowe are interred in Sarnia’s Lakeview Cemetery.
Emma Wood Lowe – a remarkable Sarnian with a life story worthy of attention.