The following report was prepared in 2024: "St. Clair/Lowe Cemetery, a pioneer cemetery in Montgomery County, Iowa: its history and burials." The report is available at the Iowa Genealogical Society in Des Moines, at the State Historical Society Research Center in Des Moines, and at the Montgomery County History Center in Red Oak, Iowa. A digital copy (PDF) of the report is available upon request from John O (Find a Grave ID, 49173681). 

The St. Clair/Lowe Cemetery is located approximately 2.5 miles north-northeast of Red Oak in southwestern Iowa's Montgomery County. The cemetery is located at the intersection of two gravel roads: Ironwood Avenue and 170th Street (aka County Road H26). The earliest documented burial in this one-acre cemetery was in 1857; the most recent in 1950: both burials were from the St. Clair family. Nearly all known burials were made before 1910. The plot map for the cemetery was lost long ago, probably to fire. There are about 60 known or suspected burials in the cemetery; the actual number of burials is likely higher. Although its origin is not documented in county histories, the St. Clair/Lowe Cemetery was likely established in the mid-1850s when Europeans began settling the area. The cemetery possibly started as a family burying ground for the David and Caroline M. (Johnson) St. Clair family of Jackson County, Ohio, who arrived in Montgomery County, Iowa, in 1854 and who were early owners of the land in the southwest quarter of Section 3 of Red Oak Township where the cemetery lies. This property, however, was first owned by Robert Johnson and his wife, Lucinda (aka Lucy) (Chamberlain) Johnson, who were also from Jackson County, Ohio. Robert Johnson purchased the southwest quarter of Section 3 in 1854 from U.S. Government for $1.25 per acre. Robert and Lucy Johnson's daughter, Caroline M., was the wife of David St. Clair. A three-month-old son of David and Caroline St. Clair, Franklin B., died in 1857, and his is the earliest known burial in the cemetery. The alternate naming as the Lowe Cemetery is likely for A.G. Lowe who arrived in Montgomery County in 1852 and who, in the county's first election in 1853, was elected as "county judge." The connection between the St. Clair and Lowe families resulted from the 1862 marriage of Caroline M. St. Clair (David St. Clair's widow) to A.G. Lowe. In 1893, the son of David and Caroline St. Clair, Benjamin A. St. Clair, deeded the cemetery land to the trustees of Red Oak Township. The maintenance and upkeep of the St. Clair/Lowe Cemetery are longstanding concerns and are mentioned in newspaper articles as far back as the mid-1870s. The cemetery has seen extended periods of neglect, especially since the 1960s. In the late 1980s, township trustees sponsored a restoration project at St. Clair/Lowe Cemetery; a monument company was hired to straighten and reset the extant markers. More recently, a local farmer has taken an interest in the cemetery with the result that a new sign for the cemetery has been placed, and long-neglected bushes that had engulfed several grave markers were removed. As a result, the appearance of the cemetery has been improved considerably. Written: August 2023.