RichardHowe.com – Voices from Lowell & Beyond

Photo Fix

Photo Fix

By Leo Racicot

I’ve always liked taking photos. The idea that you can click a button and capture a person, a place forever (or at least for as long as the photo lasts, appealed to me from childhood. When, as a nine-year-old, I acquired a Brownie camera for a birthday gift, I took instant delight in its small, simple “point-and-shoot” capability. Of course, the pictures I took with it were seldom any good. The only shot I like was taken not by me but of me, by my friend, Anthony Kalil. as we were walking up Cross Street towards his home. When, a couple of years later, one of our scoutmasters, Bill Riley, demonstrated how a camera can be fashioned by sticking a pinhole in a shoebox, I was hooked. Could there be a more amazing invention than a camera?

What became a lifelong passion for taking pictures might well have been inherited; while poking through old family scrapbooks and albums, I came across many photos our father had taken when he was serving overseas in India and Burma with the horse cavalry. Throughout his brief life, Papa loved horses (and not only horses but other four-legged equines like donkeys, burros, even zebras). I’ve written before how he kept horses in horse stables located just behind the houses here at the family homestead. Not that all his photos were of equines; he also liked taking photos of the family and of countryside vistas in his adopted Dracut. Since I didn’t know this before I began clicking shutters, my love for photographs can’t be a case if imprinting, more genetics-based, wouldn’t you say?

In about 1988, ’89, an intense friendship fell into irreparable ruin. My emotions became a tiny boat out in the middle of a dark ocean. I was devastated, depressed. Sylvia Contover, a library co-worker, seeing my distress, reminded me that, as full-time ULowell employees, we were entitled to take courses free of charge. She, in her 80s, was working toward her Masters and suggested I might do the same. My state of mind was in no shape to take on Masters’ level courses (that would come a couple of years later) but at that time, with the help of another co-worker, Marie Ann Drouin, I signed up for a Photography 101 class. Marie Ann decided it would be “fun and easy!”. Oh….brother…was she ever wrong.

The section I ended up in was being taught by renowned photographer, Arno Minkkinen. Minkkinen ran a tight ship. Suspecting that a lot of his students had chosen his course as an elective, perhaps an easy A, or like me, as a means of moonlighting through a bad spell, he set forth one of the most rigorous curriculums I had ever encountered. Every week, he chose, as our assignment, a theme. Students were to fill an entire roll of film with examples of this theme. He also gave lessons in the not-so-simple process of developing what we shot. There was a darkroom and we were responsible, on our own time, to develop our work, to be turned in for inspection at the next class meeting. Now remember, I was struggling with depression. Our first assignment was an interesting one; we were to approach total strangers on the street and ask if we could take their picture. I took to this task instantly. I’ve always been a timid guy, more so back then than now. But something happens to me when I set out to take photos. Something about being able to hide behind the camera banishes all shyness and I turn into Ron Galella (the bold photographer who haunted and harassed poor Jackie Kennedy for years). I had no problem walking up to people on the street, asking them if they’d mind posing for me. Of course, a lot of people didn’t want to but a lot did. I do remember one sightless fellow. I went up to him politely and said, “Would you mind if I take a quick picture of you?”   He said, “no” which I took to mean no, he didn’t mind. So, I aimed and took the picture. The second he heard the shutter click, he became enraged. What he’d meant when he said ‘no’ was, “No, you can’t take a picture.” Though he was blind, he started charging after me. Naturally, I ran and saw, looking back, that he’d stumbled and fallen. The incident has stayed with me all these years as a lesson that no photo is worth the cost of a subject getting hurt, whether physically or emotionally. Every time I look at the photo of this man, I think, “Shame on you, Leo.”  A simple enough misunderstanding but I regret it to this day.

But getting back to Minkkinen and his class. I’m afraid his demanding weekly assignments got the better of me; I couldn’t keep up. Adding to the chaos was the fact that I had a hard time learning darkroom techniques. The overpowering smell of both the stop bath and fixer chemicals used in developing had my eyes watering, my nose stinging. Making the situation worse — one day, I saw the friend who’d stopped speaking to me in the darkroom; even in the impenetrable blackness, I could see and feel him glaring menacingly at me. Some digging on my part revealed he’d signed up for a different section of the course. I decided never to go back to that darkroom. As a result, I fell way behind on my assignments, which led to Minkkinen calling me in for a Teacher/Student conference. I explained what was going on with me, though nothing about the estranged friend. Minkkinen said he understood but emphasized that unless I could catch up on the work, he’d have to give me an Incomplete for the class. When grade time rolled around, what did I find on my report card but a great, big, fat, red F. Throughout my academic years, I’d maintained near-perfect grades. Seeing that F was horrifying to me, as was the lying Minkkinen. It was at that point, I swore to myself that I’d become the best photographer I could be.

I began taking pictures of everyone and everything like a madman. It was rare to run into me when I didn’t have a camera in my hand or around my neck. The circumstances of my life have left me prone to depression. Whenever I find myself low or in despair, my habit is to grab not a Prozac but a camera and head out to see what I can see. In the ‘80s, I bought a used Yashica at Hunt’s Photo in Harvard Square (which I came to call “my trusty old Yashica”). I loved that camera and it held my efforts in good stead up until the time it got left behind on one of my many moves in Las Vegas. With it, I managed to shoot photos of Judy Collins and Julia Child, also many of flowers and gardens, one of my favorite subjects (I don’t know what attracts me to flowers or gardens; I don’t have a green thumb. I like plants and flowers but all I have to do when I bring a new one home is look at it and it falls over dead) I also love taking photos of murals; I like them because they are so transitory, and I want to preserve them before the wrecking ball obliterates them. I think it was Richard Avedon, possibly Susan Sontag who said, “Photographs reveal more about the photographer than they do the subject of the photo.”

I don’t claim to be an expert but I’ve learned to train my eye to the exact spot in the frame I feel is most pleasing. I figure if the image pleases me, it will please the viewer. Only a half-dozen of the photos I’ve taken do I think of as being halfway decent; I like a picture I took of a lady on The Red Line looking at her phone. I looked up and suddenly, the colors of her hair, her outfit matched the colors of the speeding red outside the window. Got it!  Another favorite is one of Whistler’s Park on Worthen Street on a rainy autumn evening. Another, of the interior of a hibiscus. These shots strike me as being pure dumb luck. At a point, as I’m aiming, Buddha enters the lens and something akin to cosmic intervention causes my finger to press the button leaving me amazed by the image it captures. I’ve even a couple of times sold my prints to private buyers and magazines. So, take that, Arno Minkkinen!

_________________

Arno Minkkinen

Blind Man

Hibiscus interior

Judy Collins looking sassy at Harvard Coop

Julia Child at Harvard Bookstore in 1997

Lady on the Red Line

Leo – photo by Anthony Kalil

Leo – photo by Dad (seen in his shadow)

Mural in Putnam Square, Cambridge

Mural on Tremont Street, Boston

Photo by Papa of his Army buddies in India during WWII

Whistler Park

Leo with his beloved Miyoshi and trusty old Yashica at Wingaersheek

Yashica camera

Seen & Heard: Vol. 34

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

Book Review: Republic and Empire: Crisis, Revolution, and America’s Early Independence by Trevor Burnard and Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy (2025). In honor of the US Semisesquincentennial, this book presents the American Revolution from the British perspective. Seen from there, it was a worldwide fight for empire that involved India, the West Indies, Ireland, Canada and many other colonies in addition to the 13 that rebelled. In 1763, England had prevailed in the Seven Years War and was not magnanimous in victory. Instead, England engaged in policies that annoyed almost every other country in Europe. When the 13 colonies revolted, France was delighted to support them as a way to pay back England, and many other countries – Spain and Holland especially – provided substantial aid to the rebels and fought the English in other parts of the world. This book shatters our American-centric view of the Revolution. One reason that England gave up on the 13 colonies was that other possessions, India and the West Indies especially, were more important. Many in England were disappointed to lose the 13 colonies but the newly-born Industrial Revolution in England left little time for mourning. Between that, and policies that strengthened the allegiance of other colonies, England thrived in the aftermath of the war. 

Article: “Lobel and Lynch” by Chad Finn, Boston Globe Magazine, August 9, 2026. Back in the 1980s, before the internet and when cable was still new, Boston television news ruled the airwaves. Anyone who was alive and of age back then can attest to that with a fair degree of nostalgia. Local sports was a big deal, and all three Boston TV stations, channels 4, 5 and 7 had top notch sports anchors. But Bob Lobel of channel 4 and Mike Lynch of channel 5 really stood out. They competed vigorously for stories and viewers. This article catches up to them now. Both experienced physical challenges: Lynch had a stroke that limits the use of his right side and Lobel has a degenerative nerve condition in his spine that has him wheelchair bound. Several years ago, they joined together to launch a podcast called UnAnchored Boston. I was happy to learn both are still around and active notwithstanding their physical challenges, and this story really stoked some nostalgic feelings for me.

Book Review: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (1920). During my recent trip to the Berkshires (mentioned last week in my review of the Norman Rockwell Museum), we had some spare time at the end of the day. Someone suggested visiting The Mount which was the summer home of the author Edith Wharton (1862-1937). While there are set hours and an admission fee to tour the house, the gardens, grounds and outdoor sculptures are freely accessible from dawn to dusk. We skipped the house and enjoyed the beautiful grounds and public art. On past vacations, I’ve sometimes paired a book set in the vacation spot with the trip which can make both more enjoyable. Struck by that impulse, I ventured into the gift shop. Never having read anything by Wharton, I asked Gemini to identify her most popular book. It replied, The Age of Innocence, so I bought a copy and was not disappointed. The book, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1921, is about upper class New York City in the 1870s. It focuses on a young man who just before marrying meets and falls in love with his fiance’s cousin. He goes through with the marriage but is torn between his attraction to the cousin and his loyalty to his wife. Spoiler Alert: He stays with the wife and lives a successful, admired life which, near the end of that life, is left with a big What If. I’ve long been interested in life in Gilded Age America so that made this book especially interesting, but it’s also a compelling and timeless story of human nature. 

Obituary: “Bill Rasmussen, 93, TV Visionary Who Co-Founded ESPN, is Dead” by Dan Shanoff and Mark Puleo in The Athletic on August 20, 2026. For many years I was a casual fan of ESPN. In the years before all the world’s information was instantly available at your fingertips on a smartphone, I relied on ESPN for scores and highlights, all delivered with good humor. However, I don’t remember the last time I watched something on ESPN – or on cable for that matter. Which is why earlier this week I went to the Xfinity store and turned in my cable box. I’ve officially joined the ranks of cordcutters. Rasmussen’s obituary was coincidental to that, but the obit shared some interesting stories. For instance, in 1978, Rasmussen was a PR guy working for the Hartford Whalers NHL hockey team (which moved to Carolina to become the Hurricanes). He was fired so he and his son decided to launch a 24/7 sports network. Since they were already in Connecticut because of the Whalers, that’s where they based the station. That turned out to be fortuitous since being in small town Bristol, Connecticut gave ESPN some early breathing room to become great and unique, an opportunity that would likely not have existed had it been based in New York City.

L’Etoile – A Star on Prince Street: Chapter 2

Two years ago, Louise Peloquin began sharing excerpts from L’Etoile, a French-language newspaper published in Lowell from 1881 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.

****

L’Etoile – A Star on Prince Street

Chapter 2 – He Steered the Course

By Louise Peloquin

      Grasping L’Etoile’s local and regional impact requires overviewing its proprietor-manager’s profile. He was a direct descendent of Pierre Biron who, in the 17th century, left his town of Sainte Hermine in Vendée in the west of France, in order to work for the Jesuits in Québec. The newspaperman’s name was Louis-Alphonse Biron.

On July 28, 1861, Louis-A. Biron was born into an old seigniorial family of farmers dating back to the very origin of colonial times when the province of Québec was called La Nouvelle-France. His parents, Etienne Biron and Marie-Louise Laroche, lived in Saint-Louis de Lotbinière, a village on the south bank of the Saint Lawrence river. When young Marie-Louise passed away, her mother stepped in to raise Louis-A. and his nine siblings. During Louis-A.’s early adolescence, Etienne died as well.

The Lotbinière parish pastor recognized Louis-A.’s potential and decided to instruct him until the age of thirteen. The young man went on to study at the Nicolet seminary for seven years. He later asserted that his academic training had instilled in him the perseverance and patience to face life’s challenges.

Louis-A.’s cousins, poets Pamphile Lemay and Apollinaire Gingras, were making a living by the pen in Québec. Their success prompted the young man to choose a career in journalism. He debuted in Québec city with various reporting jobs as well as editing in publishing houses. Despite his strong ties to the homeland, the growing opportunities south of the Canadian border and a taste for adventure drew him to New England where he felt driven to serve the thousands of French-Canadian immigrants who had flocked to the mill towns in search of jobs and better living conditions for their large families.

His sister Lumina was working as a spinner in a Manchester New Hampshire cotton mill. Her enthusiastic correspondence prompted her young brother to join her in “les Etats” (the States). Consequently, he arrived in Manchester in 1890, found employment at the French daily L’Avenir National (The National Future) and became founder Joseph-Edouard Bernier’s right-hand man.

Louis-A. moved to Lowell to work at Maxime Lépine’s newspaper, L’Etoile. Nashua New Hampshire’s French-Canadian population was rapidly growing and wanted to benefit from its own French newspaper. To meet this demand, Louis-A. founded L’Impartial in 1898 (which continued until 1964). In 1917, he handed over its management to nephew Armand Biron.

In 1910, Louis-A. Biron married Marie-Annette Thibaudeau, a young teacher who had graduated from Québec city’s “Ecole Normale des Ursulines” (teacher-training higher education institution). The couple had three children, Louis, Jeanne (Mrs. Leon Lavallee) and Marthe (Mrs. Laval U. Peloquin).

Perpetuating French-language journalism in New England was not only Biron’s vocation but also a passion which he fervently transmitted to others. The Prince Street shop welcomed countless interns eager to learn the tricks of the printing trade. Louis-A. sent out his troops all over New England to serve French-language publications.

Biron always referred to himself as “a humble man among the humble,” and shunned public recognition. When the French government named him “Officier des Palmes Académiques” to recognize his cultural accomplishments, he respectfully declined the prestigious international distinction. This brings to mind the words of Antonine Maillet, first Acadian woman to win France’s most coveted literary award, the Prix Goncourt (equivalent to the Pulitzer Prize), in 1979 for her novel Pélagie la Charrette about Acadia’s exiled French population, a story made famous by H. W. Longfellow’s epic poem Evangeline.  “Each and every one of us has a single word with our lives” she said, “and this word must be that of our people.”  For Louis-A. Biron, the only reward was his mission – serving his community.

The man known as “the tall old oak of the Franco-American press” worked ceaselessly until a severe case of pneumonia took his life on February 23, 1947 at the age of 86.

Renown international journalist who debuted her journalism at L’Etoile, Yvonne Lemaître (her biography in chapter 6) wrote this obituary for the Travailleur.

[In French]

“Un Vieux Chêne S’Abat

Louis A. Biron père, de Lowell, depuis un demi-siècle figure marquante du journalisme franco-américain, s’éteint après une carrière exemplaire.

par Yvonne Lemaître

     Louis-A. Biron père, éditeur-propriétaire de L’Etoile de Lowell depuis 1910, doyen de la presse franco-américaine et l’une des figures les plus marquantes du groupe d’origine française en Nouvelle-Angleterre, s’est éteint le 23 février à l’hôpital St-Joseph à Lowell, terrassé par une pneumonie qui l’emporta en dix jours. Le 13 février, M. Biron avait encore paru à son bureau d’administration à L’Etoile, tel qu’il le faisait tous les jours. Quoiqu’en pleine possession de toutes ses facultés, il était octogénaire. Cette fidélité, qui jamais ne se démentit un jour en une carrière si longue, tellement remplie d’un labeur intensif, était bien tout l’homme. Fidélité, intelligence, force, bonté, droiture – telles étaient les qualités que reconnaissaient au défunt tous ceux qui l’ont connu….

     Et quelle plus belle épitaphe? Il serait à souhaiter que les deux filles du défunt, Jeanne-Biron-Lavallee et Marthe Biron, toutes deux rédactrices à L’Etoile et qui manient la plume avec aisance et éclat, s’appliquent à écrire une biographie de leur père. Une telle vie est un exemple, une inspiration; son souvenir devrait être dûment assuré au grand livre de l‘histoire franco-américaine. »

[English translation]

“An Old Oak Tree Falls

Louis-A. Biron senior, of Lowell, prominent figure of Franco-American journalism for a half century, passes away after an exemplary career.

By Yvonne Lemaître

     Louis-A. Biron senior, editor-proprietor of L’Etoile of Lowell since 1910, elder of the Franco-American press and one of the most prominent figures of the French-origin group in New England, passed away on February 23, at St-Joseph’s Hospital in Lowell, struck down by a case of pneumonia which took him in ten days. On February 13, Mr. Biron had, once again, attended L’Etoile’s board administration meeting as he had done every day. Although in full possession of his faculties, he was an octogenarian. This loyalty, which never failed a single day in such a long career so full of attentive labor, indeed fully exemplified the man he was. Loyalty, intelligence, strength, goodness, righteousness – these were the qualities recognized by everyone who knew him….

     And what more beautiful epitaph? It would be desirable that the deceased two daughters, Jeanne Biron-Lavallee and Marthe Biron, both editors at L’Etoile who handle the pen with ease and brilliance, apply themselves to write a biography of their father. Such a life is an example, an inspiration; his memory should be duly guaranteed in the great book of Franco-American history.”

      With thirty-seven years at the head of L’Etoile, Louis-A. Biron was the longest-lasting editor and proprietor of a French-language newspaper in New England. The Franco-American community mourned the loss of one its most valiant champions and defenders. Antoine Clément, L’Etoile’s last editorialist, paid homage to his director by declaring that the simple fact of maintaining the newspaper was Monsieur Biron’s priceless contribution to the cultural advancement of Lowell’s Franco-American population. Clément added that Biron’s often-repeated recommendation was to put out a local paper tailored to readers’ specific needs and expectations.

Louis-A. Biron lived on through the “Star” he and his team printed out of 24-26 Prince Street, Lowell. He advised his attorney and World War II veteran son and his two daughters to continue the mission as long as possible despite financial challenges. Thus, Louis, Jeanne and Marthe carried on for ten more years. On August 17, 1957, L’Etoile died.

Louis-A. Biron is buried in St. Joseph Cemetery in Chelmsford.

A penetrating personal account of the brutalities of 20th century Chinese communism by Marjorie Arons-Barron

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

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang is a family history and autobiography of three generations of a Chinese family, spanning most of the 20^th century in China. Published in 1991, the 650-page tome hadn’t come to my attention until recently. I delved in and found it fascinating. Released just after the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and the massacre of student protesters in Tiananmen Square, Wild Swans tells the story of Chang’s grandmother, mother and herself against the backdrop of Chinese history.

Chang’s grandmother was a concubine, taken at the age of 15 as one of the several “wives” of a powerful warlord in Manchuria. She later married a highly respected doctor,  and worked at keeping the family together during the war to drive the Japanese out of Manchuria and later under the hardships inflicted by Mao Zedong. The anti-Japanese Chinese were split. The Kuomintang, nationalists led by Chiang Kai Shek, were recognized as the new government of China by both the Soviet Union and the United States. Their power base was largely in the cities. The Communist stronghold was mostly in the countryside. After the Japanese were ousted, the Communists expanded and solidified their control and set about systematically persecuting the Kuomintang as counter-revolutionaries.

Author Chang’s mother was disgusted by the Kuomintang elite’s displays of wealth when others couldn’t feed their families. She became a firm believer in Mao’s communist philosophy and married Chang’s father, a poet and intellectual who became a top official in the Communist Party.

Initially the Communists redistributed land from affluent Kuomintang to peasants and provided grain and coal to the most destitute. But, as Mao became the iron-fisted patriarch, the radicalized Party set the terms not just for the politics of the country but for personal lives as well. Chang’s attachment to her mother and the rest of her family was seen as bourgeois weakness. Chang’s father was an absolutist, putting party over family and seeing suffering as the road to becoming a better communist.

Using scores of tape recordings made by her mother, Chang writes in great detail of the Communists’ betrayal of their early promises: the brutality with which they extracted party loyalty from all residents, the suffocating atmosphere of repression, deprivation of rights of speech, the barbarity unleashed by manipulating people’s hatreds, the crushing of culture, the smothering of education, and the end of individual expression in China.

The economy failed as well. Mao’s so-called “Great Leap Forward,” an attempt to move from an agrarian to an industrial society, collectivized farms and nationalized heavy industries (like steel). The program crushed food production and commerce, generating more profound poverty and famine. (At least 30 million died from starvation alone. More than that would die later from the purges of the Cultural Revolution.) Quality of health care and other benefits depended solely on status within the Communist Party.

As a student, Chang initially followed in her parents’ footsteps, but she found herself increasingly turned off by what had become the personality cult of Mao, even after Mao had reversed his brutalist economic policies. More than anything, she wanted to focus on her studies, to learn English, to read literature (some of which she subversively acquired through a black market in books.) Intellectuals were denounced as “capitalist-roaders” and sent to the country for reeducation as peasants, humiliated, subjected to beatings and worse.

Mao called on his Red Guards to smash up “old ideas, old culture, old customs and old habits.” The sixties were a reign of terror, with Mao turning against even the existing Communist hierarchy. His goal was for everyone to be indoctrinated with loyalty to him alone rather than the Party. Anyone (including the author’s father) who spoke out against what was happening would be imprisoned, tortured or killed. Chang’s father was in and out of brutal detention, sinking into psychosis for a time.  Her mother, separately, was in and out of detention between 1967 and 1969. Both were kept in detention camps from ’69 through ’72.

Chang is surprisingly devoid of self-pity despite having grown up with absentee parents. As she approached her 16^th birthday (in 1968), she started writing poetry. One of her brothers engaged in black market activities; another brother joined a street gang. As she puts it, over these horrific years, she said, her “indoctrination was collapsing.”

She began to see the perpetual class conflict and the misery to which the Chinese people had been subjected in a more realistic light. She goes into fascinating detail about the influence Madame Mao wielded in exacerbating the repression, especially of women, and the relentlessness of Chairman Mao in destroying centuries of Chinese culture.

After Mao’s death in 1976 and Deng Xiaoping’s “rehabilitation,” the author competed successfully for university acceptance and ultimately for the opportunity to study in the West. Her mother’s visit to her in Britain in 1988 provided the chance to learn the details of the family’s history that make this book so noteworthy

Some readers may find there are too many details bogging down the narrative. I found they just make the intensity of the privation described and the daily struggles for survival that much more real. It also makes China’s emergence today as a world-leading economic power all the more remarkable and the tenacious pattern of government repression more understandable. Wild Swans has been translated into dozens of languages, but it should come as no surprise that it is banned in mainland China.