Lydia B. Sargent Gower (PEO.30)

Lydia B. Sargent Gower (1853-1947)

Lydia’s parents were Lucius Bolles Sargent (1820-1895) and Mary Ann Byard (1823-1911) and her siblings were Rodolph Bolles Sargent and Lucia Almeda Sargent.

Lydia married William Dix Gower in about 1879 and their children were: Grace Prescott, Frederick Allen, William Harrison, Gertrude Sargent, Helen Bartlett and Ronald Lee.

William Harrison Gower, the son of Lydia and William Dix Gower, was born in Sargentville 31 Jul 1886 and died Jan 1913 at the age of 26, probably lost at sea.

William Harrison’s father John William Dix Gower died 27 Mar 1906 in Melrose, Mass. at the age of 52 of pneumonia with rheumatic fever and pericarditis.  He was buried 29 Mar 1906 in the Newton Cemetery.

Note:                                                                                                                                        As a point of clarification: in his Nov. 5, 1973 memoir about his step-father Captain Rodolph Bolles Sargent (Lydia’s brother), Donald G. Swortwout writes the following about Lydia’s husband William Dix Gower, “The disaster which caused the death of his sister Lydia’s husband, Captain Will Gower, was on his mind quite often. Captain Gower’s schooner, the Gertrude A. Gower, disappeared in what later became known as the Dangerous triangle in the Atlantic Ocean where so many ships and planes have disappeared without leaving a trace. The ship was loaded with railroad iron and was in rough weather and it was Captain Sargent’s theory that she just hit a very heavy sea and opened up and went down without warning.”

In fact it was Lydia’s son who was lost at sea, not her husband Will Gower. This error regarding Lydia’s husband likely was an understandable misinterpretation of a story told by Rodolph.

Photos of Lydia’s children Ronald and Fred Gower

This story about Lydia was written by her granddaughter Nancy Lee Gower Hitchcock.