RichardHowe.com – Voices from Lowell & Beyond

Prayers, Pies and Prizes

Prayers, Pies and Prizes

By Leo Racicot

I’d be lying if I said our mother looked forward, as did so many of the parents of our Saint Patrick’s School classmates, when the school year rolled around to school community-related activities such as raffles, school fairs, bake sales, paper drives. As a widow, and as someone who was innately shy, she felt not entirely comfortable among the other parents, most especially the mothers of students who had early before I entered the flock in second grade (I spent my first grade year at The Morrill School across the street) formed impenetrable cliques. I don’t think my mother was paranoid about not fitting in; even as a child, I observed a certain, if not snobbery or disdain, a palpable reserve towards her from other mothers. There was, indeed, a stigma attached to a young widow, a widow’s children. I never talked with Diane about how she felt but I, myself, experienced the curiosity, if not the downright scorn, of classmates as being one of the only two kids in the whole school whose father had died. (The other was Karen Waite whose father or mother (I forget which) had died, leaving her half-orphaned. Whispers about the two of us were heard, no matter how hushed, whispers and insults. I remember being so incensed by remarks aimed at me by a group of students one day at recess in the school yard that I found myself countering with, My mother’s been married seven times so I have seven fathers! No one seemed to challenge this and one kid, Danny Mullen, looked at me in an awe usually reserved for astronauts.    So, there was this to be lived with — being fatherless for us, Diane and me — being husband-less for our mother.

School group gatherings were awkward for her, I could plainly tell second only to root canals on her list of “things to be avoided”. As I started out saying, she cringed whenever an invitation from the nuns was sent home with us requesting her participation in this or that fundraising event: a solicitation for a cake for a bake sale, say, or an appeal to volunteer her time for a paper or penny drive. Appeals to craft homemade aprons and potholders for school hall raffles made her an absolute wreck. She’d protest, What are you kids getting me into now??  One “ask” we all three of us wanted to run from was the two or three times a year the nuns asked families to sell chances, raffle tickets for a fair, or Holy Childhood Seals drives, whatever the parish deemed necessary to fatten its coffers. Good sport that she was, my mother sometimes bit the bullet (you couldn’t bite the bullet every time the nuns asked or you wouldn’t have any teeth left in your head) but she was game to once-in-a-while try to lend a helping hand to her two very put-upon children. I’d inherited my mother’s shyness, either that, or it had imprinted itself upon me, so I wasn’t too eager to go knocking on neighbors’ doors for what seemed to me like panhandling. Classmates from nearby streets were knocking on the same doors. It wasn’t uncommon for me, when I’d find the courage to approach neighbors, to be told they’d “already given”.

In spite of all this donation trepidation, lame sales pitches, I did like the end results of the fundraisers. All anxiety melted away once we entered the school halls, the church basements, greeted by the festive cakes, the brilliantly decorated tables, the colorfully-draped ceilings, food and drink goodies so abundant, a child’s eyes, hands and appetites didn’t know where to begin. Usually the centerpiece of these events was The Money Doll. “Money dolls” were an arts and crafts fundraising staple where a doll (often dressed like a bride or a First Communicant girl) had paper currency — usually ones, fives, and tens — folded, fanned, pinned, origami-style all over its dress or attached as a cascading skirt. These were quite the popular money-maker themselves; everyone bought a ticket hoping to win the jackpot. There could be only one winner though but everyone left with something before going home, if only a full stomach, a satisfied sweet tooth. The frenzied scramble to become overnight salespeople was left far behind. Until the next time…

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PTA mothers in 1960s

Our mother in the 1960s

A money doll

Holy Childhood Seals

Bake Sale table

Seen & Heard: Vol. 40

A weekly report on things I’ve read, heard and seen since last Wednesday. 

Book List: The 50 Best Thrillers of the 21st Century in the New York Times Book Review, September 27, 2026. One of the high points of my weekend is reading the Book Review although I come away from it wanting to  acquire more books than I’ll have time to read. My wife and I both like to read although I choose mostly nonfiction while she goes for fiction. On one hand that’s good because we don’t compete over who reads a book first, but on the other hand, we buy more books than we would if we both read the same ones. Anyway, this week’s Book Review had their list of the 50 best thrillers of this century. I see that my spouse checked off 17. I read less than that. In fact, reading thrillers has been so rare for me that I can list the ones I have read here: “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” by Stieg Larsson; “No Country for Old Men” by Cormac McCarthy; and “The Sympathizer” by Viet Thanh Nguyen.

TV List: The Top 100 TV Shows of the Century. This was another New York Times list. To the extent I watch TV anymore, it’s either YouTube or Netflix. I dropped cable TV during the summer and though I have an indoor TV antenna, I only use it to tune in weather forecasts because for some reason I like seeing and hearing a professional explain the weather rather than just read about it. Because of my de minimis TV watching, I didn’t expect I would check off many shows on this list but I surprised myself by tagging 17 of the 100. My self-imposed criteria for saying I watched a show was to have seen at least three episodes in full. Often I saw more, but three gets you beyond the “I’ll just check this out” stage. Here are “my” shows with the years they ran indicated: The Wire (2002-08); Mad Men (2007-15); Veep (2012-19); 30 Rock (2006-13); Friday Night Lights (2006-11); The Americans (2013-18); The Crown (2016-23); Deadwood (2004-06); Band of Brothers (2003); House of Cards (2013-18); Downton Abbey (2010-13); Slow Horses (2022 to present); The Shield (2002-08); Ted Lasso (2020 to present); The Good Wife (2009-16); The Queen’s Gambit (2020); Justified (2010-15). 

Op-Ed: “Big Tech Fooled America Once. The Second Time’s Not Going So Well.” by Oren Cass, New York Times, September 13, 2026. The author is the chief economist at American Compass, “a conservative economic think tank.” He argues that as tech arose as a major piece of everyday life, most Americans believed in the altruism of tech pioneers and gave them the benefit of the doubt. But now that we’ve seen how it has turned out, with social media especially, hardly anyone believes what any of these guys say and hardly anyone believes these guys wouldn’t impoverish every one of us (or worse) if it enriched them even a little bit. One of the reasons our country is in such a precarious position is because billionaires can wield disproportionate influence in the political process because of their money. But on this issue, it seems that people on all sides of the political spectrum have common cause for standing up to the tech billionaires and since we still live in a democracy, that counts for something. 

Obituary:  “Peter Max, artist whose work breathed spirit in the 60s, dies at 88” by William Grimes in New York Times, September 18, 2026. Whenever I visit a place, I go to the local art museum, so I feel like I’m familiar with most notable artists. So whenever I see a full page obituary in the Times of an artist I’ve never heard of, I read it closely. Such was the case with this one. Several photos of his art illustrate the story. It’s colorful, exaggerated, almost psychedelic. If you ever watched the old Monty Python TV show, in between the skits they would do a cartoon-like short film that had wild images and sounds. Max’s work would fit in. He’s now on my mental radar and I’ll closely monitor how long it takes me to find one of his works on display somewhere.

L’Etoile – A Star on Prince Street, Chapter 8

Two years ago, Louise Peloquin began sharing excerpts from L’Etoile, a French-language newspaper published in Lowell from 1886 to 1957. At my urging, she has agreed to compile some of her previous posts with added contextual information into a book manuscript to be called, L’Etoile: A Star on Prince Street. Starting this week, Louise will present draft chapters from the book in serial form here on the blog. Today, we have another installment.

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L’Etoile – A Star on Prince Street

Chapter 8 – Defending Lowell’s Industries

By Louise Peloquin

Chapter 7 showed us that L’Etoile covered all kinds of local stories.  What identified Lowell from the very beginning is the story of its industries. Here is a front page feature on the importance of defending them.

LEtoile, February 21, 1925

“Il faudrait que Lowell conservât ses industries.

Nos grandes industries locales ont une tendance à émigrer. La Chambre de Commerce et les corps publics se liguent pour opposer un barrage. Un Comité général qui veillerait aux intérêts de la ville et de sa population.

Lowell va lutter pour conserver ses industries intactes. Hier soir, huit membres du Conseil de ville, le procureur de la ville, représentant le maire, et le Comité des affaires municipales de la Chambre de Commerce se réunirent à la salle de la Chambre, et, après une longue discussion sur les moyens à prendre, adoptèrent à l’unanimité une politique nouvelle dans les annales de la ville.

Un comité général, en lui-même non officiel et sans pouvoir, sera proposé au Conseil de ville, à la prochaine assemblée. Ce comité sera composé de conseillers, probablement le comité de finances, de quelques représentants des citoyens choisis par le maire, et de membres de la Chambre de Commerce pour représenter le domaine organisé du commerce et de l’industrie. Il coopérera en donnant au gouvernement de la ville des jugements et des opinions au sujet des dépenses spéciales proposées pour la ville, qui affecteront bien le taux de la taxe et l’évaluation des propriétés. Il offrira toutes les ressources expertes locales pour aider au Conseil et au maire dans l’administration municipale. Et on espère qu’il aura pour résultat d’exciter et de maintenir parmi le public un intérêt intelligent dans les affaires municipales.

La raison de ce movement est que nos industries tendent à aller s’établir ailleurs et que

d’hier soir. Les membres du gouvernement municipal présents étaient les conseillers Gallagher, Preston, Chrétien, Dickson, Chadwick, Thomas, McPadden et Cosgrove, et le procureur Reynolds. Après le souper, le président MacPhie traça les grandes lignes de la situation que la Chambre de Commerce doit envisager à propos des industries locales établies déjà et de celles en perspective. Il déclara qu’il était temps de combattre l’émigration de cette ville des vieilles industries qui sont ici depuis longtemps. Il cita le déménagement du Bigelow-Hartford, de la Lamson Co., et probablement le prochain départ de l’Appleton Co.

Il dit qu’il ne s’agissait pas de panique, mais qu’il fallait prendre la chose au sérieux et trouver un moyen d’encourager nos industries. Les filatures locales paient un cinquième des taxes municipales et emploient 20,000 personnes. Ceci devrait encourager le public à faire un effort réel pour les conserver.

On convient en général qu’un bon moyen d’aider à la situation serait de pratiquer l’économie dans l’administration de la ville. On veut assurer l’avenir de nos industries et offrir un encouragement attrayant aux nouvelles industries qui voudraient s’établir ici.”

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“Lowell must keep its industries.

Our large local industries tend to emigrate. The Chamber of Commerce and public bodies are coming together to oppose an obstruction. General committee to look after the interests of the city and its population.

Lowell will fight to keep its industries intact. Last night, eight City Council members, the district attorney representing the mayor and the Chamber of Commerce City Affairs Committee met in the Chamber of Commerce hall. After a lengthy discussion, they unanimously adopted a policy, unprecedented in the annals of the city.

A general committee, in itself non-official and without power, will be introduced during the next City Council meeting. This committee, composed of counsellors, probably the finance committee and several citizen representatives chosen by the mayor and Chamber of Commerce members to represent business and industry. It will provide the City government with findings and opinions on recommended special city expenses which will definitely affect tax rates and property assessments. It will offer all of the local expert resources to assist the Council and the Mayor in city administration. We hope the result will maintain and boost the public’s keen interest in city affairs.

This movement began as a response to industrial relocation, a trend which is endangering our city’s development and prosperity.

President Elmore I. McPhie of the Chamber of Commerce chaired last night’s meeting. Were present City Council members Gallagher, Preston, Chrétien, Dickson, Chadwick, Thomas, McFadden, and Cosgove and district attorney Reynolds. After dinner, president McPhie outlined the situation the Chamber of Commerce is facing concerning well-established local industries as well as future ones. He declared that it was high time to combat the relocation of long-established local industries and mentioned the departure of Bigelow-Hartford, Larson Co. and, probably next, Appleton.

He said that panicking was not in order. However, the situation must be taken seriously and a means must be found to encourage our industries. The local mills pay one fifth of the city’s taxes and employ 20,000 people. This should encourage the public to make a real effort to keep them.

People generally agree that measures of savings in city administration would be a good means to improve the situation. We want to guarantee the future of our industries and offer attractive incentives to new industries thinking of establishing here.”

Published three weeks after the above article, the following editorial raises questions about the future of Lowell’s industries.

L’Etoile, March 12, 1925

“Nos Industries.

Des personnes qui ont vu arriver les industries cotonnières locales opinent à croire que les taxes qu’elles paient au gouvernement municipal sont réellement trop élevées. Elles ne voudraient pas pour tout l’or du monde que s’exécutât cette menace de quelques industriels de transporter leur pénates dans le sud des Etats-Unis, tout particulièrement dans l’Etat de l’Alabama. Elles ont souhaité cette enquête sur le présent système de taxes que doit bientôt commencer le comité industriel nommé à cet effet. Tous ceux qui sont intéressés, de quelque façon, dans le problème industriel, devront faire confiance à ce comité qui se compose, en vérité, des représentants de tous les éléments qui dépendent, pour ainsi dire, des filatures de coton: manufactures, professionnels, marchands et ouvriers. Des membres du conseil municipal et de la Chambre de commerce les aideront dans leur tâche et, avant de conclure prématurément, il faudra attendre le rapport de cette enquête qui devrait être faite le plus minutieusement  et le plus scrupuleusement possible.

Bon nombre de citoyens toutefois ne croient pas au départ des filatures cotonnières aux profit des villes du Sud. Ils seraient d’avis que ce n’est qu’un mouvement lancé par quelques industriels intéressés à la faveur de la présente crise industrielle et financière et, partant, du marasme qui sévit dans le commerce d’exportation à l’étranger, marasme qui persiste à cause du peu de valeur des monnaies européens.

En tous cas, attendons les résultats de cette enquête qui, nous le répétons, devra être probante, basée sur des données concrètes et non sur l’à peu près et le vague.

Personne ne mettra entrave aux enquêteurs, nous croyons bien; par contre, ils devront se tenir éloignés de toute influence indue ou trop intéressée.”

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“Our Industries.

Those who have seen the local cotton industries arrive and prosper here in Lowell believe that city taxes are really too high. Not for all the gold in the world would they like some manufacturers’ threat to relocate to the United States South, particularly to the State of Alabama, to come true. They have wanted the special committee to carry out an investigation on the present tax system. All those who are interested, in one way or another, in the industrial problem, will have to trust this new committee composed of true representatives of all cotton mill players: manufacturers, professionals, merchants and workers. City council members and the Chamber of Commerce will assist them and, before prematurely coming to a conclusion, it will be necessary to wait for the report of an investigation conducted as minutely and as scrupulously as possible.

However, a great many citizens do not believe the cotton mills will move to cities in the South. They believe that this is a movement launched by manufacturers interested in taking advantage of the present industrial and financial crisis and a persistent exportation slump due to low European currency values.

In any case, let us wait for the results of the investigation which, we repeat, should be conclusive and based on concrete data, not on approximation and vagueness.

We believe that no one will obstruct the investigators. Nonetheless, they will have to remain far from all unreasonable or overly-interested influence.

A short novel, long on atmosphere, characters and narrative by Marjorie Arons-Barron

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog.

Seascraper by Benjamin Wood is a 2025 long-listed Booker novel (really more of a novella) suffused with the gray and misty atmosphere of a British seaside village in the early 1960s, animated by fascinating characters, and enriched by the interiority of the protagonist.  Thomas Flett, barely 20 years, lives with his 36-year-old mother, Lillian, in a shabby house not far from the sea where he earns his living gathering shrimp.  His father died in the Second World War, and he learned shanking for shrimp and other survival skills starting at age 14 from his deceased grandfather, Pop, with whom he and his mother lived after she got pregnant at the age of 15.

Other shrimpers have newfangled motorized rigs to mechanize the job of gathering tasty crustaceans. That’s not how Pop taught Thomas. Every day, Thomas harnesses his overworked horse to a small wagon and goes to water’s edge where he scrapes the sand for a pail of shrimp to sell at market.  Sand pits (sinkpits) threaten his own safety and that of his horse. The work is tedious, far from remunerative, but he knows that following Pop’s rules will enable his mom and him to scrape by.  He longs for something better, but his grandfather had drilled into him that “habit’s all you can rely on.”

It’s almost always foggy, raining or about to rain. Thomas goes home at the end of the day stinking from fish, his own sweat, seaweed, and the filth on his clothes from mucking the horse barn.  His hands are full of cuts, and his toenails are painfully ingrown. He gets back into the same clothes for several days at a time.  Their small house always feels damp.

Thomas dreams of a life beyond, but is stuck, nurtured only by the many books he reads. He has a deep interest in folk music (having secretly sold his grandfather’s watch for an old guitar) and in a young woman in town, but he is too timid to pursue either. His stultified daily routine is interrupted by a newcomer to town, a charismatic, fast-talking American film director who wants to shoot his next project on the isolated beaches so familiar to Thomas. Edgar Acheson is the most interesting person Thomas has ever met. The director’s kinetic exuberance for everything he sees around him, his rejection of conformity, and his exhortation to live life to the fullest make an impact on Thomas. But there is more to learn about Edgar Acheson.

There are plot twists that keep the pages turning.  Author Wood is a powerful writer and skilled craftsman. Seascraper will leave the reader with a gentle smile and the gratification that the few hours reading it have been well spent.