Grace Cockman Lowe's Contributions to Her Community

By Mrs. Joan F. Long, Lystra Extension Homemakers Club, Chapel Hill, as published in the Chatham County Herald after Grace Cockman Lowe’s death on Dec. 22, 1980

Mrs. Grace Cockman Lowe, 76, of northern Chatham died on Nov. 18 in Clapp’s Nursing Center in Pleasant Garden, N.C., after 2 ½ years of illness.

Mrs. Lowe, a native of Siler City, moved to northern Chatham County near Chapel Hill in 1932 when she married Donald Alexander Lowe. Mr. Lowe died in 1967.

She was an outstanding woman in her community. Due to her efforts in 1936, Homemaker Extension Clubs were organized in Chatham County, known then as Tomato Clubs. She was active in the Lystra Club until her illness. She served as Corresponding Secretary for the N.C. Executive Board for Homemakers Extension Clubs and was a delegate to the N.C. Council of Women’s Organizations.

While serving as Chatham County Council President 1963-64, she received the A&P Tea Company’s award for Outstanding Leadership. In 1955 she represented Homemakers Extension Clubs as a delegate to the United Nations, and in 1966 she was sent as a representative to the 21^st National Conference on Citizenship in Washington, D.C.

As a woman who wore many hats, she once taught school in Chatham and Randolph counties, managed a dining room at U.N.C.-Chapel Hill, and for 10 years ran a country grocery store. During the Depression in the 1930s, she worked with the Emergency Relief Program, helping to organize adult educational classes in rural areas. Her car was probably the first “bookmobile” in the county as she made library books and textbooks available to her adult students.

She was a member of the American Legion Auxiliary Post 6 and served as Chatham Unit President as well as District Vice President. She was a member of Mann’s Chapel United Methodist Church, where for many years she taught Sunday School, was local and district president of the Women’s Society of Christian Service, and was a counselor for Methodist Youth Fellowship.

She worked diligently to get electricity and telephones into her community.

Homemakers Extension Clubs have the following “Collect for Club Women.” It describes Mrs. Lowe’s life.

“Keep us, oh God, from pettiness, let us be large in thought, in word, in deed. Let us be done with fault finding and leaf off self-seeking. May we put away all pretense and meet each other face to face without prejudice. May we never be hasty in judgment and always generous. Let us take time for all things; make us grow calm, serene, gentle. Teach us to put into action our better impulses, straightforward and unafraid. Grant that we may realize it is the little things that create differences, that in the big things of life we are all one. And may we strive to touch and to know the great, common human heart of us all, and, oh Lord God, let us forget not to be kind! (written by Mary Steward)

Mrs. Lowe was the daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. A. Carson Cockman of Greenesboro and the oldest of 10 children. She is survived by three brothers and four sisters.