Adolph M. Ludwig Lowe

When Adolph was born in 1840, the Lowes lived in Prussia, most of which was in modern-day Germany. In March of 1861, at age 20, Adolph enlisted in the US Navy and was stationed on USS North Carolina. In July of that same year, and still before his 21st birthday, he declared his intention to become a citizen and renounced his allegiance to his former country.

He served on some of the first gunboats built by the US Navy including USS Wabash and USS Seminole. Just a month after Adolph enlisted, President Lincoln issued the Proclamation of Blockade Against Southern Ports, designed to prevent the trade of supplies, weapons and goods by the Confederacy.

The initial phase of the blockade targeted ports along the east coast, including the pivotal Battle of Port Royal in South Carolina. This was one of the first battles of the blockade and also one of the earliest naval operations of the Civil War.

Adolph was discharged from service in June of 1864, and married Matilda Von Strat in 1868 in Richmond, Virginia. They had two boys before moving in 1871 to Kansas City, Kansas. Two more boys and two girls joined the family before she died in 1885. He wasted no time in marrying Harriet Sanford the following year, but she died in 1888. Adolph apparently had a successful business, as shown in this ad in the Kansas City city directory that year. At right is a uniquely styled photo of Adolph and Harriet from about the time of their wedding. It wasn’t until 1902 that he found another wife in Rosa Kaiser when they were living in Chesilhurst, New Jersey.

He had suffered various injuries during the war including impaired hearing. Those injuries didn’t keep him from re-enlisting in 1917 after war against Germany (his former homeland) was declared. He passed the physical test even though he was 77 years old, making him the oldest Navy man on active duty. His rank was Carpenter’s Mate 2nd Class.

The sailor was too old for overseas duty so he was assigned to a machine gun company in Virginia Beach. Even though he never used a gun like that before, he made 230 hits out of 300. For the rest of his five-month tour he fulfilled his duties as an instructor.

Historians estimate that 200,000 Civil War veterans returned to military duty in World War I, but no one has been found to be older than Adolph. One of his grandsons, Gaston, is shown here and is probably the only person that could say he was in the Navy at the same time as his grandfather. Meanwhile, Adolph’s son, Otto, was a lieutenant with the Red Cross during the war and spent a year in Siberia.

Adolph spoke eight languages fluently, attended the Lutheran Church, and was a member of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), a fraternal organization of Civil War veterans. In 1920 he and Rosa moved to Lansdale, Pennsylvania where he joined the American Legion, which had just been recently organized for veterans of the Great War. At age 81 he attended the Legion’s third national convention which was held in Kansas City in 1921.

A year later a stroke sent him to the hospital where he died. His funeral service was conducted by the Legion at the Naval Home on Grays Ferry Avenue with interment here in the Naval Plot.