About Roy Dow

Roy Dow was my uncle. Actually, he was my grandma’s uncle - born in 1932 in Carrizozo, NM.

After a stint in the Air Force and a decades-long career with Western Union, he retired from his job at Western Union, moved back to his hometown and started a business.

For some people, retiring means leaving the woes and travails of a stressful career behind to lavish in the fruits of your hard-fought labor. For others, it means finding new work to keep your hands busy and leave your mark on the community.

That business was Roy’s Gift Gallery: an old-fashioned soda parlor, ice cream shop and gift store. It was founded in 1978 and was later relocated to the historic Paden Drug Store. That building was built in 1909 as a drug store and hospital for the then-booming railroad town.

When I was younger, my mom and I would visit Uncle Roy in Carrizozo when I was on school breaks. Uncle Roy would wake up, we’d all share some strong coffee and toast, and he’d go off to work. Then, whenever I got bored of playing Minecraft, I’d walk down the street and visit the shop.

Roy Dow died on September 25th, 2013. From what I heard, he died of a cardiac arrest while he was getting ready for work. He was 81 years old. He never married, and had no children.

My mom took ownership of the store after Roy’s passing. She made a real go of keeping it alive for a few years thereafter, with plans to expand the store’s role as a community hub through grants and other alternative funding sources.

But it’s hard to run an ice cream shop from 300 miles away, in a historic building that required $1,000,000 in renovations, in a town of less than a thousand people, in a part of the country that was left behind by the 21st century. The store closed in 2015, and the building was sold a few years back.

Not much remains of Uncle Roy, except for his grave and the memories of all who knew him… and a couple websites cached by the Wayback Machine. I’ve rehosted them here for you to scroll through. Enjoy.

← Back to the postcard