A replica charcoal portrait of the Alvin Ailey Dance Troupe hangs in the living room of the quaint Alabama farm house where Leo '76 and Patricia (Simmons) Rowe '78 made their home for the third chapter of a truly Ambrosian love story.
Patricia was a wife, mother of three, a childcare worker and an ordained deaconess in the Missionary Baptist Church.
She was an artist, as well. Watercolors. Lithographs. Charcoal. Calligraphy. Patricia dabbled in all of the mediums she learned under the demanding instruction of Rev. Edward Catich, the legendary artist and St. Ambrose professor of art who she called "The Catman."
Making art was her private passion, however, and Patricia shared her work only with family. Among Leo's most treasured possessions is that dramatic charcoal recreation of a well-known, black-and-white photo depicting members of the famed American dance troupe seemingly about to take flight.
It is a precious and perfect reminder of a remarkable relationship that soared following a chance meeting on the steps of Davis Hall on a September afternoon in 1974.
* * *
Back on the St. Ambrose campus nearly 40 years beyond that fateful encounter, Leo Rowe painted a beautiful picture himself-a word picture that eloquently framed four decades of friendship and devotion, including 32 loving years of marital partnership.
"We had a beautiful marriage," he said. "I know people go through ups and downs, but we didn't. I couldn't have chosen a person I was more compatible with. Truly God put our marriage together. I don't have any words to describe it other than it was a marriage made in heaven and manifested on earth."
The story was told in past tense, because Patricia Rowe's life on earth ended in late April, two months after she was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer. She was 58.
Himself a deacon of Pleasant Hill Missionary Baptist Church in Lisman, Ala., Leo said his faith kept him strong during his wife's illness, and it gave him comfort afterward, during what he referred to as Patricia's home going.
"I felt like I stood as a rock," he said. "I knew God, and I knew that nothing happens without God's approval. So I just trusted Him. And He got me through."
Leo said he also felt the hand of God on an afternoon in late July. It was pointing him in a familiar direction.
"I was on my way home, and as had happened many times as I was thanking God for having my wife, there were tears involved," he said. "And then just out of the blue, I saw myself standing at St. Ambrose University, and God telling me what I was about to say to honor her life as a strong Christian. And that I would be establishing a scholarship in her name.
"When I got home, I looked in the mailbox and there was an invitation from St. Ambrose for a memorial Mass they were going to say for my wife. And I said, ‘Lord, you are too good to me."'
Rev. Charles Adam '82, DMin, the campus chaplain, said Campus Ministry typically dedicates four Masses each week at Christ the King Chapel to recently deceased alumni. Family members of the deceased are contacted well in advance with a notice that includes a prayer composed by the university's namesake saint:
"We have loved them in this life. Let us not abandon them until we have conducted them by our prayers into the house of the Lord." - Saint Ambrose of Milan.
"That is a really nice quotation," Fr. Adam said. "And that is basically our belief, that we still remain united even after death, and that we can assist one another with our prayers."
The memorial Masses frequently are attended by families of the deceased. But the longtime SAU chaplain was particularly moved when Leo Rowe called to say he intended to drive to Davenport from Alabama, and be joined by two of his now adult children, when prayers were said for their wife and mother at 4:30 p.m. Mass on Aug. 21.
"I was touched that he wanted to share the story of his marriage to Patricia," Fr. Adam said.
* * *
A few months after moving to Davenport following his high school graduation in 1971, Leo Rowe found himself jogging across a placid college campus in the city's center. "I said I think I'll come visit that place on Monday," he recalled.
When he did, longtime St. Ambrose registrar Juanita Monholland accepted him "on the spot," Leo said.
"When I finished five years later, she told me I had one of the best-rounded educations of anyone she had seen," he noted. "I took some of everything-dance, piano. I really ended up with more of a business background and a degree in PE. I became like a sponge, learning the different philosophies, religions and liberal arts."
One of fewer than 10 African-American students on campus when he enrolled at St. Ambrose in January of 1972, Rowe said he never felt ostracized nor apart. Raised in the south as a Missionary Baptist, he also was able to grow in his faith at the private, Catholic school.
"I felt that I was welcomed," he said. "I attended Mass. Although the services were different, there is only one Lord. There is only one heaven. After being in the St. Ambrose community, understanding and studying religion and philosophy, I was able to find my place."
Leo, of course, also found his soulmate at St. Ambrose.
A three-sport standout at Davenport Central High School, Patricia was touring the campus with Clarence Simmons '71, one of her 15 siblings, when they encountered two young men seated on the stairs outside Davis Hall.
Her brother kiddingly warned her she didn't want to talk to "those two," but Leo and the budding artist Fr. Catich soon would nickname "Patty Doll" would talk plenty at St. Ambrose.
The couple married on Valentine's Day 1982 and moved to Columbus, Ohio, where Leo worked 10 years at Ohio State University before continuing a 35-year career in real estate. Patricia worked with children with mental disabilities after their two sons and a daughter became of school age.
The Rowes were ordained as a deacon and deaconess in the Missionary Baptist Church in 1990, and continued as church leaders when they returned to Leo's roots in 2008, moving back to Alabama to live on the farm on which he was born.
While Leo worked for the Department of Commerce, Patricia volunteered at their church. "She taught newly converted children what it meant to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior," he said. "The latter part of her life, that was one of the things I noticed. As God was preparing her, she saw all these children. Those, I think, were angels that God had placed in her midst."
Leo's intent is to establish a St. Ambrose scholarship in the name of Patricia (Simmons) Rowe. It will be for minority females who "exemplify excellence, purity and commitment in their lives."
Although he doesn't have the funding right now, Leo said with confidence and abundant faith, "God will provide a way."
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