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Living Madly: Nothing Gold Can Stay

The Quincy School in Dedham, Massachusetts

Living Madly: Nothing Gold Can Stay

By Emilie-Noelle Provost

The elementary school I went to was built in 1909. The brick building was a replacement for an older wooden school that had been built sometime in the mid-19th century. My grandfather and his three brothers had also gone to the school. It’s where they learned English.

Named for Josiah Quincy III—a lawyer who served as mayor of Boston, in the U.S. House of Representatives, and as president of Harvard University— Quincy School was located in my town’s working class neighborhood. It was founded to educate the children of the French-Canadian, Irish, Italian, and Polish workers who labored in the mills on Mother Brook or worked for the wealthy families on the town’s west side.

Most of the students at Quincy School were the children or grandchildren of immigrants. Some were immigrants themselves. Everyone was Catholic. I didn’t realize it at the time, but many of the students were also poor. There were kids in my grade who wore the same clothes to school every day, who never had anything to eat at snack time. Some of them didn’t have warm clothes or coats to wear in the winter.

A lot of the time, it was these kids who got into trouble for acting up in class or talking back to the teacher. They would have their desks moved to the sides of the classroom, facing the wall, so they could “concentrate” better. Looking back, I think these kids were probably hungry. Or maybe they were just trying to get some adult to notice them, to see that they needed help.

Bullying was a problem, especially for kids who were new to the school. In the second grade, a new girl came to our class in the middle of the year. She was French-Canadian and tiny for her age. The moment she arrived, the popular girls decided they didn’t like her. Their treatment of this small girl was brutal. I regret not telling our teacher about it. But I was seven years old and deathly afraid that, if I did, they would turn on me, too.

Because of its age, Quincy School lacked things that were common in newer school buildings. We didn’t have a gym, for example. When the weather allowed it, we would have phys ed class outside. Our gym teacher was a husky Polish guy who called us by our last names. He used to mark out spaces in the schoolyard for us to run relays or jump rope with orange traffic cones, which he called “pylons.” I thought everyone called them that until I was in my mid-twenties.

There was no cafeteria, either. Kids who ate lunch at school had to eat in their classrooms. If you had to buy lunch, it would come in a pre-packed paper bag. Usually, it was something non-perishable. But sometimes, and I will never know why anyone thought this was a good idea, it was cold fried chicken.

You knew ahead of time that it was going to be a chicken day because all the paper bags would be soaked through with grease by nine a.m. Also, there was the smell. Perhaps the worst thing, though, was the mess.

After lunch, all the desks would be covered in chicken grease. The teachers would hand out rolls of brown paper towels and some kind of industrial-grade purple spray. We did our best to clean our desks with this stuff, but it was almost impossible to get all the grease off.

Some kids went home for lunch. For a few years, I was one of them. Every day at noon, they’d let us out the door without a second thought, even students as young as six. I liked eating lunch at home because it was a nice a break. There were no teachers to tell you to stop talking or hassle you about finishing your milk. I liked the quiet, and that there were no other kids around to make trouble. I don’t remember ever being reminded about what time I had to be back at school, but somehow I always made it.

Quincy School was loaded with asbestos. The floor tiles were made of it. Every heat and hot water pipe in the place was wrapped in layers of the stuff. We used to pick at this insulation while we were waiting in line to go to recess. I liked the way it came apart in sheets. I think about this every time I see one of those home improvement shows where workers are removing asbestos from a house wearing respirators and hazmat suits, a giant vacuum tube sucking out the ambient dust. Their precautions always feel like overkill.

The blackboards at Quincy School were made of natural slate, and they were actually black. Chalk glided across them like silk. They had fancy woodwork boarders that had been varnished so many times that they had taken on a high gloss. Anything written on these chalkboards was easily erased without a trace. They were magnificent.

First grade was my favorite year. My teacher was a no-nonsense Yankee with a heavy Boston accent. She wore wrap skirts and Kelly green chinos and taught every last one of us how to read and write. Sometimes we took turns reading poems aloud. The poem I loved most was Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost. I always volunteered to read it, and can still recite most of it from memory.

When I was in the fifth grade, our principal, an elegant French-Canadian man who was a veteran of the Second World War, came into our classroom to tell us that the school was closing at the end of the year. There weren’t as many kids as there used to be, he told us, so the town no longer needed all of its elementary schools. Quincy School’s students would be going to another school, about a mile away, in the fall.

After hearing this news, I felt sad and lost. I was worried about what was going to happen to me. Quincy was the only school I had ever known. I dreaded the idea of having to go to a new school with kids I didn’t know. Even worse, we found out later that the town had sold the school building to a contractor who planned to tear it down and build houses on the land.

The morning they demolished the building, most of the neighborhood came out to watch. An enormous wrecking ball tore through its brick walls. Broken pieces of varnished woodwork and shards of slate were mixed with the smashed bricks. A bulldozer pushed the rubble into piles. I remember my mother being horrified that no one had tried to save anything before the building was destroyed. They hadn’t even bothered to take the clocks down or the light fixtures. Everything was gone.

Many years later, someone who had worked for the town told me that Quincy School had been torn down because it was in “disrepair.” It was, of course. But I’ve never been able to shake the feeling that the real reason the school was sold for scrap was because the kids who went there were from working class, immigrant families. The town knew none of us would fight back.

Along with the other kids in our neighborhood, my sister and I each took a brick from the school home as a keepsake. With a piece of chalk, I wrote the lines to Nothing Gold Can Stay on the back of mine. It seemed appropriate at the time, and I suppose it was.

For most of my life, I’ve used that brick as a paperweight. It’s a reminder of the place I came from. It’s also reminds me that anything, even the most solid of buildings, can be transitory unless people are invested in its survival. We only get to keep the things for which we fight, all the rest becomes history.

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Emilie-Noelle Provost (she/her) is the author of The River Is Everywhere, a National Indie Excellence Award, American Fiction Award, and American Legacy Award finalist, and The Blue Bottle, a middle-grade adventure with sea monsters. Her website is  emilienoelleprovost.com.

It’s Always Happening in 1924/25 Lowell

It’s always happening in 1924/25 Lowell – (PIP #62)

By Louise Peloquin

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     PIP #61 (1) presented exhibits and new construction in Lowell a century ago. Here are more indications of the city’s vitality.

L’Etoile – February 14, 1925

RADIO EXHIBIT OPENING

Liberty Hall will hold Lowell’s first radio exhibit to begin this afternoon and continue until Wednesday. It will be open to the public for five days from 2 to midnight. The program includes a wide selection of radios on display and all kinds of entertainment. The exhibit features a number of old devices as well as radios built by amateurs. The hall is beautifully decorated for the circumstance. Radio enthusiasts will undoubtedly be interested in attending the demonstrations on how to build a radio and on how to connect the electric wiring. 

     An orchestra will perform a concert every evening from 8 to 10 and then play music for dancing until midnight. All of the local retailers and many Boston wholesalers offered their support to exhibit director J. Dempsey. 

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L’Etoile – October 29, 1924

A NEW GREEK CHURCH IN THIS CITY

     At a recent meeting, the city’s Greek Orthodox Church members decided to launch the preparations to build a new church at the cost of approximately $75,000. Apparently, 600 faithful are entirely separated from the independent Orthodox Church.

  Last week, the construction committee acquired 10,000 feet of land on Common Street on the corner of Common Avenue. According to Emmanuel D. Kaknes, president of the construction committee, an architect is preparing an estimate and construction plans. The work will soon begin.

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L’Etoile – October 22, 1924

Formal Opening of Fidler’s New B.L.O. Store 

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Run by Charles S. Fidler and Son, this store is increasing its business tremendously. – A good name for the new building would be “The Beautiful Store.”

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          Fidler’s Boston Ladies Outfitters, directed by Charles S. Fidler and his son, made a long-cherished dream come true with the formal opening of its new department store at 92-100 Merrimack Street. The expertise of the most senior company managers triggered rising sales. Mr. Fidler’s experience in manufacturing greatly helped him expand his business. The extensive purchasing and sales knowledge of the proprietor’s son, now general manager, has recently lead to a very quick upswing in business. 

     “The Beautiful Store” is certainly an appropriate name for this building which sells quality merchandise at reasonable prices on four floors. The copper façade announces the lovely interior with its well-lit hallways and advantageously-displayed goods offered at the lowest prices.

     The store opened by Fidler Senior ten years ago was insignificant compared to today’s.

     With only three salespeople working in the coat, suit, dress and hat departments, Charles S. Fidler opened Boston Ladies’ Outfitters. Great business success encouraged him to expand. Three years later, a ready-to-wear department opened on the ground floor on Middle Street. A children’s clothes section opened next, followed by a bargain basement with attractive prices for thrifty housekeepers. Last year, successful merchandising allowed the purchase of the Cook-Taylor building and renovations. Today, the store is one of the most beautiful and best-known, not only in Lowell but also in the State, outside of Boston. Quality, service, courtesy and the possibility to return goods if dissatisfied, made the store what it is today.

     The beautiful window displays are among the main attractions. The Merrimack Street façade windows put fancy coats, dresses, hats, lingerie and other new items on view. Internationally-known Paul Blumberg, Fidler’s window decorator, has won many coveted awards for his work.

     For the store opening, a special window included evening gowns, stoles and all sorts of novelty articles. Magnificent Spanish shawls, very much in style at the moment, are also included. The star of the displays is the central window decorated with silk, costume jewelry and, as centerpiece, a model of an English frigate recalling the days when silk and lace made up most of a woman’s trousseau.

     The Middle Street section, formerly for ready-to-wear items, carries silk, velvet, wool and cotton fabric sold by the yard and draperies.

     The ready-to-wear department, with coats, suits, dresses and an extraordinary selection of hats, was moved to the second floor. Fidler’s carries all of the popular hat colors and the latest models for all occasions.

     The gift and toy department, with new games and toys, is on the fourth floor. There are also column lamps, table lamps and other lighting equipment.

     The children’s department on the third floor carries all kinds of novelty items, everything imaginable for babies, for 4 to 16-year-old girls and even for 2 to 16-year-old boys.

     Undeniably, one can find what one needs at Fidler’s – new velvet tunics with fur trim, silks, embroideries, duvetyn and charmeuse dresses, velvet coats, imitation suede and other fabrics.

     Administration offices and the window decorator’s studio are easily accessible and located on the fourth floor.

     Based on the policy of offering quality merchandise at reasonable prices, Boston Ladies’ Outfitters holds a prominent place among top-notch department stores. (2)

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1. PIP #61 link here:   https://richardhowe.com/2025/03/11/its-happening-in-1924-lowell
2. Translations by Louise Peloquin.

A loving memorial to Journalist/author Tony Horowitz by Marjorie Arons-Barron

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

Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks is a perfect book for any reader who has loved Brooks’s novel Horse, or Caleb’s Crossing, March, or The Secret Chord. Her husband, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Tony Horowitz (Confederates in the Attic, Spying on the South, Baghdad without a Map) died unexpectedly from a heart attack on a sidewalk in Washington, DC May 27, 2019, a day before leaving on an eight-day book tour. They had been married for 35   years, worked together as foreign  own blogcorrespondents for the Wall Street Journal, been each other’s sounding boards, editors, companions and soul mates.

This is a book about grieving and a memorial to the unsuspecting bliss of happy days, sharing ups and downs and ups again, finding time and place to deal with the loss and learning, then – one step at a

time – to return to work and go forward.  It’s in the genre of Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, about coming to grips with the loss of husband John Gregory Dunne in 2003, but Brooks offers much more in the way of fine writing. Memorial Days is enriched for her clever turns of phrase, her painterly rendering of the natural world around her, against the honestly conveyed backdrop of grieving.

In 2023, Brooks returned to her native Australia to a primitive shack on a secluded island, to take long walks on the beach, to read and write, but most of all to remember. In the Australian setting, she is free finally to deal with her loss. At home on The Vineyard, she is surrounded by hordes of friends and an actively caring community, whose best of intentions have protected her from the hard work of grieving.The process, she writes, is to “begin to feel…. an unclenching of the soul.” An environmentalist, she captures the details of the island’s wildlife, its birds, its grasses, its rock formations, the weather patterns. She alternates chapters between time spent in that isolated cabin living in the bush and life in the rural area of West Tisbury in Martha’s Vineyard. (She is the next-door neighbor and good friend of my brother- and sister-in-law Fred and Jeanne Barron.)

One  of the most memorable takeaways from this book is a quote from another author, Martin Prechtel, who wrote, “Grief is praise because it is the natural way love honors what it misses.” It’s a lot to think about. The book is a gift not only to those who knew Tony Horowitz or knew his work, but also to anyone who must deal with the terrible impact of the loss of a dearly loved one.

Lowell Politics: March 16, 2025

At Tuesday’s meeting, the Lowell City Council discussed newly enacted state legislation called “Ollie’s Law” which is intended to improve the safety and regulation of pet boarding facilities, particularly dog kennels and daycares. The law was inspired by the 2020 death of a puppy named Ollie who died from injuries sustained in a dog fight at a daycare facility. The incident highlighted a lack of consistent state oversight of pet boarding facilities. The new law updated existing licensing rules for kennels and requires daycares to be licensed. It also delegates to cities and towns the responsibility for enforcing the law.

On Tuesday, councilors, dog owners, and daycare owners raised two concerns. The current Lowell ordinance apparently lumps daycares and kennels together, making dog daycares in the city subject to the stricter requirements imposed on kennels where the animals are kept overnight. The proposed remedy for this, to amend the city ordinance to treat daycares separately, would free them from the stricter rules and would be easy to implement since it can be done by the Council.

The second concern was a requirement of the state law that all dogs at both kennels and daycares must always wear their collars. Several speakers (including two councilors) said this was a safety hazard in that when dogs fight (or play in a way that resembles fighting to us), it would be easy for a collar to become snagged and to strangle or otherwise injure a dog. Because this is a statutory requirement, the council cannot unilaterally change it so they will contact our elected officials at the State House and urge them to propose a modification of the law.

The primary purpose of the collar requirement, as I understand it, is so each dog will continuously display their rabies tag and municipal dog license tag which both must be attached to the collar. The rabies tag is issued to the dog owner by the veterinarian who administers the rabies vaccination to the dog.

The dog license is an annual thing, with the license expiring on December 31. Prior to that, dog owners are required to submit an application for a new or renewed license, a certificate of vaccination from the veterinarian, and the applicable fee (usually $10 or $20), to the City Clerk’s office, either by mail or in person. If you are late, there is a $5 per month surcharge assessed. If you file your application by mail, a few days later a new dog license tag will arrive back to you in the mail.

More information about Lowell’s dog licensing process is available online (although you can’t get the license online).

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The future of the Smith Baker Center arose again on Tuesday with a joint motion by Councilors John Descoteaux and Kim Scott that the council rescind its January 14, 2025, vote to demolish the building “for the specific purpose of issuance of an RFP with strict time and financial parameters.”

Councilor Descoteaux explained that although he supported the motion to demolish the building, he brought this motion now in response to the council’s refusal last week to authorize representatives of the “Save Smith Baker” group to enter the building for further investigation of its condition. Councilor Scott added that “we owe it to the group to give them a chance to respond to an RFP.”

Most councilors who spoke seemed inclined to allow an RFP to be issued provided it could be done quickly and that it contain strict timelines for performance including a rapid “wrapping” of the building to catch any debris that might fall from the roof or the façade. The city solicitor suggested that an RFP could be issued and responded to in approximately two months.

In the end, Councilors supported the RFP motion by a 9 to 2 vote with Councilors Corey Belanger and Erik Gitschier voting against it.

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Councilor Gitschier also had a motion to revisit an earlier decision by the council, this one on the parking requirements of Lowell’s implementation of the state’s MBTA Communities zoning law.

The fight against this law has occurred mostly in communities that oppose the construction of multifamily housing. Because Lowell already has so many multifamily districts and because the new law would not affect any single-family zones (where opposition to multifamily housing would be as intense as it has been elsewhere), the zoning changes needed to implement the law sailed through the council with self-congratulations but not much scrutiny.

Now, a new multifamily development on the former Hynes’s Tavern site on Gorham Street near the end of the Lowell Connector is being constructed in accordance with the new Lowell Zoning Ordinance which requires little or no on-site parking. Because that stretch of Gorham Street often sees bumper to bumper traffic and because the people already living in the neighborhood find parking to be a substantial challenge, the expected addition of new vehicles competing for on street parking has generated concern.

This motion was referred to the City Manager for a response.

The MBTA Communities Act seeks to increase housing density near MBTA stations. While it doesn’t mandate specific parking ratios, it acknowledges that excessive parking requirements hinder housing development by increasing construction costs, reducing the amount of land available for housing, and encouraging dependence on cars, so the law encourages communities to re-evaluate their parking requirements.

While the theory behind reducing parking requirements offers significant potential benefits, imposing “no parking required” rules in isolation will predictably result in chaos (as we are witnessing now, in small scale). To be successful, the adoption of no parking required rules must be part of a larger, carefully planned strategy that engages the public and convinces decision-makers to rethink traditional approaches to urban development.

Such a strategy would engage those most affected by the changes, namely the people who already live in the area and who face their own parking challenges. In addition to addressing their concerns with things like greater availability and enforcement of residents only parking ordinances, the benefits of the “less parking” strategy should be communicated. These would include increased walkability, improved public spaces, and enhanced quality of life. Then, instead of allowing wholesale use of the new law by developers, limited pilot programs should be tried with their effects monitored and with adjustments made to future projects. It would be complicated and would take a long time, but the potential payoff would be huge for the city.

I suspect one of the reasons there is little enthusiasm for trying to save Smith Baker (outside of the aforementioned group that’s valiantly defending the structure) is that many are skeptical it could succeed as a public entertainment venue due to the lack of public parking located close to the site. That attitude was illustrated a few years ago when Smith Baker came before the council and then Councilor John Leahy pessimistically said, “But there’s no parking,” to which the DPD representative addressing the council replied, “There are 2500 parking spaces within a half mile of the place.” Leahy responded, “People want to park nearby.”

Although Leahy is no longer on the council, his opinion about the need for nearby parking remains strong in the city and will always be an obstacle to new projects. That’s why changing attitudes and opinions is so important for future economic development.

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The long-awaited Lowell 311 system debuted on Tuesday, just in time for the council meeting. It consists of an app, a website, and a voice telephone line. In his memo to councilors, City Manager Tom Golden wrote, “Lowell will now have a fully integrated work order system for citizen requests, one which interfaces with our financial system and will allow for department heads to manage citizen requests in a manner to maximize efficiency and promote the effective use of resources.”

The city urges residents to create an account which can be used across the platforms and then download the app from the applicable app store. The city’s website also has a dedicated page for the 311 system.

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This week on richardhowe.com:

In “Henry Knox and Evacuation Day”, Rich Grady writes about an amazing feat of military logistics that occurred close to here 249 years ago this week.

In “George Washington at Dorchester Heights”, I explain how Washington followed up on the accomplishment of Henry Knox.

Massachusetts native and current Chicago resident John Suiter writes of a recent encounter with “a good citizen.”

Louise Peloquin translated a 1924 article from L’Etoile, Lowell’s French language newspaper, about a big festival in the city and the city’s building boom.

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From the mid-1980s until the onset of the Covid pandemic in 2020, the annual St. Patrick’s Day breakfast (later a dinner) was a big event in Lowell. One reason the event was so popular was the spontaneous humor of the Master of Ceremonies, Ken Harkins, a local real estate agent and auctioneer.

As a reminder to those who experienced the breakfast and as an introduction to those who did not, here are a couple of YouTube clips of Harkins in action at the 1989 breakfast.

Clip one (8 minutes)

Clip two (4 minutes)

Happy St. Patrick’s Day