On this day in Arlington history, November 7, 1925, Milton Isiah Rowe, Sr. was born in Washington, DC. Raised in Arlington, he served in the US Coast Guard on the USS Pocatello during World War II and returned to work for the US Army at the Pentagon for 37 years. After retiring from that career, he became a butler for some of the DC area’s more renowned residents.
Milton and his wife, Ruth were original owners of housing built for veterans returning from World War II known as the Dunbar Homes. Milton always worked two jobs to provide for his four children, and he became a butler, working for catering firms that served presidents and members of the Cabinet. Later he came to work at the White House on the Butler’s Special Event Staff and he served at state dinners from the Reagan to the Clinton administration.
Milton was the great grandson of blacksmith William A. Rowe who left Freedman’s Village to become the first black policeman in what would be Arlington County and would go on to become the first African American on the Arlington County Board of Supervisors in the 1870s.
Milton was an active member of the Nauck/Green Valley community. He was an advisor to the Boy Scout Troop #589 of Arlington, was a member of the Nauck/Green Valley Civic Association, the NAACP, and the American Legion. Milton Rowe passed away in 2016.
(Information and photo from “Bridge Builders of Nauck” by Dr. Alfred O. Taylor, Jr. and “Arlington National Cemetery Graves Cover Former Black City,” by Jesse J. Holland, Associated Press, April 20, 2010)
