Who Was Gomer Gower?
By Mary Leak
Gomer Gower is a name mentioned in many books about Thurber. He was a resource for Mary Jane Gentry in her master’s thesis, “Thurber: The Life and Death of a Texas Town,” “A Way of Work and a Way of Life” by Marilyn D. Rhinehart, and various other books on the town and the way of life in it. However, he himself isn’t expanded upon much outside of a few personal matters mentioned in the letters he wrote to Gentry that made it into the appendix of her book.
Gower was born on November 25, 1869, in Glamorganshire, Wales, to Thomas and Elizabeth Gower. He was the fifth of eight children and was 10 when his family moved to the United States. His family settled in Rentchler Station, Illinois, until early 1882. From there, they moved to Savana, “Indian Territory,” now known as Oklahoma, where he and his father were employed as miners. While here, his family lived in a four-room house with a Scotsman before moving into a rented log cabin.
Around the age of 14, Gower fell ill with Malaria, very luckily surviving. In 1883, his family left Savanna and moved to Gordon, Texas, under the doctor’s recommendation. On May 1, 1883, there was a reduction in wages for the Savanna miners, which sparked the first miners’ strike in what was then Indian Territory. Gower recounts there being no organization of miners and no labor organizations to help the workers with the discussion, as well as the company telling the miners to, “return to work or get out of the Territory.” In Gordon, Gower and his father were miners until the mine closed in January of 1886. In August that same year, he moved to Lehigh, Oklahoma, and continued his mining profession.
Between 1886 and 1892, he moved to Breckenridge, Texas, and, in 1892, he married his wife Mary “Mollie” Veale Smith. Shortly after their marriage, they moved to Thurber, Texas, which is where all 6 of his children were born. Gower states his friendship with Colonel Hunter, of whom the name might be recognized as the second head of the Thurber company town. He mentions he was employed under Colonel Hunter when Hunter passed away in 1900. “He was truly an outstanding character of whom it can be truthfully said, “he was a winner.” …at once ruthless and yet kind.” During his time in Thurber, he worked many different jobs and helped in many different social activities. He helped the Knights of Pythias, of which he was a member, host to an anniversary ball, a ball-style party for a local woman, the first Labor Day celebration of the town, and various other events. He worked as a weighman, a member of the United Mine Workers of America, a miner, a superintendent, a mine boss, and more during his time in Thurber.
In the early 1900’s, Gower was a delegate in many discussions of miners’ wages and working conditions improvements. In 1920, he represented the operators of the Thurber mines during a discussion on an increase in the price of explosives and therefore an increase in the amount of money taken out of miner paychecks. This resulted in a halt on the raising of prices and the creation of a new commission for price regulation. He served on this commission, the explosives subcommittee, and the machine committee, all as a representative of mine operators. He also served on the State Mining Board for bituminous coal mining and the Resolutions Committee under the Texas Federation of Labor.
In 1937, Gomer Gower was head of an operation with Ab-Tex to reopen mines 1, 3, and 10 to retrieve materials left behind by the miners after the mines closed to help with the war efforts of World War II. Most of what was retrieved was machinery, tools, copper wires, and other metals. He had a difference of opinion with the safety measures taken, which cut his time with the company short before the operation was switched into the hands of the Federal Bureau of Mines. Before this switch, there were 3 deaths caused by a mixture of gases that suffocated those who inhaled it.
Gomer Gower helped Thurber, Thurber’s miners, and even people of other mining towns for most of his life. He passed away September 8, 1958, in Poteau, Oklahoma at the age of 88. He was survived by 8 grandchildren, 3 children, and 2 siblings. His wife had passed away 18 years prior, along with 3 of his children and 5 of his siblings.
