Troy Jackson Lowe

Troy Jackson Lowe was smart, funny, a little feisty and always happy to see you when you walked through the door.
He was the son of John Madison Lowe and Fran Hendricks, a loving husband for almost 65 years to the love of his life, LaVerne, father to three, father figure to many, grandfather of seven and ‘Grandpa Lowe’ to too many others to count both related and not.
He lived a long and prosperous life of experiences from farm boy to basketball player, from electrical engineer to military officer, from sports coach to business owner.
And above all, the man could FIX ANYTHING!
He grew up in poverty, a sharecropper’s son and the second of five children (Virginia, Bobby, Larry, and Joy), and was rightly proud of the hard-won success he had achieved for himself and his family and that his three kids had turned out OK.
He played basketball with a crowning achievement of playing on the 1952 Oglethorpe County high school championship team.
Troy was a gutsy planner and do-er, whether it was taking a bus to Chicago with nothing but a suitcase and $100 in his pocket to find a college education and a career (having never before left the South), or starting his own successful business from scratch–Troy would do it.
He met LaVerne at Chicago’s WLS Barn Dance where he says she asked him to square dance. When he replied he didn’t know how, she said she would teach him. Ironically, the boy from a Georgia farm was taught to square dance to country music by the girl from Chicago. When his future father-in-law was asked about the Georgia boy his daughter was dating he replied that, “He seems like a nice fella but I can’t understand a word he’s saying.”
The couple were married on November 28, 1959 and lived in Edgebrook then Des Plaines, Illinois. They had three children, Gary, Janene and Jeffrey.
Troy loved his career in the military, first in the Illinois Army National Guard and then in the Air Force National Guard rising to Lt. Colonel and leading hundreds in the 264th Combat Communications Squadron, which was then out of Chicago’s O’Hare airbase.
In civilian life, he spent over 25 years at the Bell System and at Illinois Bell was part of the team that designed the nation’s first emergency 911 system. Troy took a transfer from Illinois Bell to Southern Bell and the family moved to Stone Mountain in 1979.
He was an engineer and inventor at heart who loved nothing better than to just ‘piddle around’ building circuits with his basement electronics equipment or spending months rebuilding a 1963 Porche 356. He taught his sons and daughter to patiently fix and to ‘figure things out’ in a logical and systematic manner that they found could be applied to all things.
Following a buy-out offer from Southern Bell, Troy and LaVerne started their own telecommunications business, Garlow Communications, where Troy acted as a boss, friend and mentor to a new group of people including his loyal crew of Larry, Adam, Jim and David.
Even with his busy schedule, he still found time to coach his kid’s soccer and basketball teams and referee soccer.
Troy loved to give out nicknames to his kids and grand-kids whether it was Jeannie-Beannie, Katie-Bug, Pretty-Girl or George and Sam. Or to sing silly, made-up songs about watermelon. Above all, he adored spending time with his grandchildren.
In his retirement, he travelled, golfed more, acted as a golf marshal, attended his grandchildren’s games and events and spent time at the beloved family beach house.
He always had a joke to tell and loved comedies like “Blazing Saddles” and “O’ Brother Where Art Thou?” And his southern slang and farm sayings were the stuff of perplexing legend to his Chicago-born children. One of them recalled that, “Dad always referred to us kids as the ‘Young’ens’ as in ‘Honey put the young’ens in the car.’ I knew that meant us kids but I just thought it was its own word until I was 10 or 11 and figured out it was a southern combination of young ones.”
Troy’s long, 88 years on earth were still not enough for those who knew him and the world is a little less bright and friendly without him in it. But then, I guess God must have needed something in heaven fixed.
————-
Troy’s burial is being held at the Georgia National Cemetery for veterans on November 8, for immediate family. A Remembrance will be held in January, near his birthday, at the family home in Stone Mountain. Details to follow.
Troy Jackson Lowe is survived by his wife LaVerne Joyce Petersen Lowe, sons Gary and Jeffrey and daughter Janene. By grandchildren Katie, Jackson and Parker Lowe, Tucker and Taylor Lowe, Rohan and Krishan Lathia. And by daughter-in-laws Annette and Erica Lowe and son-in-law Rahul Lathia.