Arthur Lowy Family Collection

The Lowy family traces its ancestors as far back as the mid-1600s. The earliest papers in this collection date back to the mid-1800s to the Ebstein family of Prussia. In 1849, Adolph Ebstein was given citizenship under Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV after having served in the Prussian army. He later ran a wood business.

Adolph Ebstein’s daughter Rosalie married Samuel Löwy, the co-owner of a Hungarian wine business Dalchow & Löwy. This business eventually served the royal household of Heinrich von Hessen-Darmstadt directly. Samuel and Rosalie Löwy lived in Berlin-Charlottenburg.

Their son Adolf Lowy was born Salomon Adolf Löwy in 1878 and became a lawyer in Berlin. He and his wife Herta née Bobrecker (1895-1943) also lived in Berlin-Charlottenburg, where they raised two sons, Erich and Arthur. Adolf and Herta escaped Nazi Germany to Amsterdam, where Adolf died in 1943.

Adolf and Herta Lowy’s first son Erich Lowy (later Eric Lowry) was born on November 23, 1916. He studied chemistry and chemical engineering at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. He immigrated to the United States in 1945 and later sponsored the immigration of his brother Arthur. Erich married Fiducia (Lucy) Gaetano, an Italian immigrant, and they had a son Earl Lemly. He died in January of 2011 in Middletown, Connecticut.

Arthur Lowy (alternatively Friedrich or Fritz Arthur) was born on May 5, 1921. He studied architecture at Leeds School of Architecture and Town Planning in Leeds, England. After immigrating to the United States, he studied urban planning at Columbia University in New York and eventually settled in southern California. He died in 1997.