The Lighthouse: A Love Story

Richard and Dorothy Lowery are my grandparents and their love story is something that has always inspired me. They met in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England while my grandfather was studying to become a Naval Architect, and my grandmother was studying to be his best friend.

Soon after my grandpa graduated, they started their odyssey living in dozens of cities before settling in Montreal and then their final port of call, Vancouver. My grandpa would follow the work, and my grandma would follow him. (She was a dancer although would never admit to it except if she was tap-dancing with me after dinner on the linoleum of our kitchen).

In the early 1940's my grandparents settled in Singapore, they were there for 5 years before the war broke out, and they had no choice but to flee. They moved to Melborne, Australia while my grandmother was pregnant with my mom.

My grandmother was quite the seamstress, and while my grandparents didn't have a lot of money after leaving their home in Singapore so suddenly when my mother was born, my grandmother went to work on her Christening gown, she made it out of the linen found in my grandpas blueprints, I wore the same dress years later at my own Christening.

After being in Australia for 18 months, Canada's opportunities were too good to ignore. They traveled by ship to Montreal, with my mother as a toddler because my grandpa always thought, why travel any other way than by sea.

He became the Vice-President and Chief Technical Officer, of Canada Steamship Lines, and proved himself as a very talented architect.