Bolling Puller Lowrey

1940 - 2024

Bolling Puller Lowrey

October 17, 1940 - October 3, 2024

Bolling Puller Lowrey was born in Decatur, Georgia on October 17, 1940 to James Duncan Puller Jr. and Kathleen Barker Puller. She graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and spent a memorable summer in 1960 with the National Park Service in Glacier National Park, Wyoming. She met her husband Francis William Lowrey in Washington D.C. and they married in 1964 after she returned from a year working in Ankara, Turkey. Together they moved to Albuquerque where Bolling taught elementary school. They moved to Mexico City in 1969 for Bill's doctoral thesis research. In 1971 they welcomed their first daughter, Kathleen Bolling Lowrey. Bill then joined the Foreign Service as an officer of the United States Information Agency. Their first posting was to Korea, where Bolling taught English from kindergarten to college level. In 1974 they welcomed a second daughter, Maegan Alice Lowrey. Bolling was a Brownie troop leader and taught Social Studies during their posting to Montevideo, Uruguay. While posted to Jakarta, Indonesia in the late 1980s, she became one of the international women docents trained to guide tours for foreigners in the celebrated historic ceramic section of the National Museum. In the early 1990s, Bill took a position with Interlink and they moved to North Carolina, where they lived first in Mebane and since 2004 in Greensboro. They welcomed a granddaughter, Rose Maria Bolling Weber, in 2010. Bolling cared for Bill at home through his final illness and then for her brother James Duncan Puller that same year: Bill and then Duncan died in August and December of 2015, respectively. Known for her warmth, intelligence, love of language, wit, and lively interest in the world and the people in it, Bolling was blessed with many friends and leaves beloved relatives from both Puller and Lowrey branches of the family. She is survived by her daughters and granddaughter. A lifelong nature lover, hiker, canoer, botanizer, bird-watcher and beach comber, she shared the spirit described in Thomas Hardy's poem "Afterwards". In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Greensboro Urban Ministry.