Matthew Grant (Doc) Lowe was born November 5, 1870, in Atchison County, Missouri. When fourteen years old, 1884, he and his parents moved to Centralia, Kansas. Two years later they moved to Logan County, Kansas, by covered wagon, and took a homestead about two miles east and six miles south of Winona. They stayed for a year and lived in a dugout. They planted a crop, but nothing grew. Therefore, they moved back to Nemaha County, Kansas. He came back to western Kansas in the 1890's and helped with the building of the Rock Island Railroad near Colby. He met Mattie Pearl Melton at a Christmas dance at a neighbor's. They were married on July 19, 1898, at Senaca, Kansas. Eight children were born, the eldest of which died in infancy. Doc used to be a fiddler at dances when he was a young man. In 1902 he joined the United Brethren Church and was quite active in church work and at one time was a Sunday School Superintendent. Doc and family lived in Wabaunsee County until 1914 when they moved to a ranch located north of Wallace, known as the old Brook Ranch. In his farming efforts there he employed the efforts of several Percheron horses. In 1918, they left the ranch and moved to a farm at Russell Springs, Kansas. After that they lived south of Brewster, near Brownville, and then north of Winona, where most of their children attended school and married. In 1932, Mr. and Mrs. Doc Lowe moved to Wallace County. They retired from farming in the early 1940's and moved to Sharon Springs in 1944. They didn't get to do much traveling, however in the late 1940's they accompanied their son Harley, and his wife to California where Doc did some ocean fishing and caught a big fish. On January 29, 1952, Mattie Pearl Lowe died in the Goodland, Kansas hospital, after an illness of ten weeks, and Doc made his home with different members of the family. He was a great fisherman, and card player, and was always making things with his hands, in woodwork, leatherwork, painting, etc. He died December 9, 1959 at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Clyde Schurtz of Sharon Springs, Kansas. The cause of his death was said to be a heart attack, after a good, long life of 89 years, one month and four days. Taken from an article written by Doc Lowe's grandson, Don Smyth. Printed in the 1976 Historical edition of The Western Times, Sharon Springs, Kansas As told to Mary L. Sondburg, by George Huff, Almena, Ks., an old acquaintance of Doc Lowe, he said Doc Lowe, in his younger days, was mighty good with the "cuffs". from the notes of Mary Sondbur