Children of Samuel and Sarah (Bigelow) Tower:
15198.1841 Ellen May Tower, b 08 May 1868; d 09 Dec 1898 (07 Jan 1899?) Puerto Rico; unm. - an Army nurse. (see below)
15198.1842 Minnie Tower, b 1870; m Frank Lamoreaux; res. Pasadena, CA.
15198.1843 Sabra S. Tower, b 30 July 1871; m 11 Jan 1893 Frank J. Newman, b 23 April 1868, d 04 Sept 1925; res. Saginaw; 4 children.
15198,1844 Lura Bigelow Tower, b 24 Nov 1872; m (1) 25 Dec 1895 Albert E. Maynard, (2)10 Feb 1920 Thor Schreiber; 2 children.
Sources:
Bigelow Family Genealogy Vol II , p 336-337;
Howe, Bigelow Family of America; page 311 child;
Correspondence with descendant by Bigelow Society historian/genealogist.
http://www.byron.org/History/Tower.htm
(see below)
Not far from the front entrance to the Byron Cemetery
a monument marks the grave of Ellen May Tower, famed Spanish-American war
nurse.
Miss Tower was the daughter of Captain Samuel S. Tower, a veteran of the
Civil War and for sometime the village blacksmith and
Mrs. Sarah (Bigelow) Tower.
Ellen May Tower was born (May 8, 1868) and educated in
Byron and soon after her graduation from the 10th grade entered the office
of Doctor
Whealock of Bancroft. For a time she taught school in the Bancroft area,
then left to enter nurses’ training at Grace Hospital in Detroit.
Doctor Sterling of Grace Hospital presented her with her diploma on January
17, 1894 and five years to the very day, he spoke at her funeral in the
Opera House at Byron.
When the United States declared war on Spain in 1898
she volunteered for service as a war nurse. Her service began at Point Montauk
and during that time it was her good fortune to meet Dennis Donohue, a Detroit
newspaperman and Hazen Pingree Jr., son of the Michigan Governor. These men
greatly admired the cheerful service she was giving to the sick and wounded
men. They understood the uncertainties of war and promised the girl that
if anything happened to her she would be brought back to Byron and her friends.
She went East and then to Puerto Rico. It was there that Ellen May fell ill
contracting the dreaded typhoid fever. Constant work day and night had greatly
weakened her resistance. As she had been the first to volunteer for service,
she was the first of the five nurses to be stricken. Her father was notified
on December 9, 1898 of her death. More than a month later the body of the
28 year old nurse was brought back to Byron. Donohue and Pingree had kept
their promise.
A military funeral had been arranged – the third time in history that such
a rite had been performed for a woman and the only woman in Michigan to be
so honored.
rodbigelow@netzero.net 
