The Parker Lectures

By Leo Racicot

The Parker Lectures have been around for more than 100 years, Established as a trust fund in 1917 by their founder, Moses Greeley Parker, a Dracut physician and much-decorated Civil War surgeon, the Lectures offer the Greater Lowell area programs of a wide-ranging and diverse assortment of entertainments, everything from circus acts to educational talks by experts from all over the world. And every event is free!

I look back in amazement at the acts I was able to see.

Our mother took Diane and me to see The Lipizzaner Stallions, a special breed of European riding horse, developed by The Hapsburgs of  Austria in the sixteenth century. I still picture these magnificent beasts being put through their paces by riders dressed in the brightest of uniforms,  royal red and gold-brocaded finery,  hear the thunderous clomp of the horses’ hoofs on the wooden stage of Lowell Memorial Auditorium. (Most Parker shows in those days were held at The Auditorium). Wasn’t I thrilled when Walt Disney Studios made a movie about these horses, The Miracle of the White Stallions, starring Robert Taylor, Curt Jurgens and Lilli Palmer, As I recall, the shows  that drew the most crowds were these Lipizzaners, also, The Vienna Boys Choir whose show drew SRO audiences. Who would think a boy growing up in Lowell would have a chance to see this world-famous singing group? I’d recently seen Almost Angels (again, a Disney production) and thought it was so neat that here they were, singing in Lowell. It was thrilling. And, again, it was free. The best part!

Over the years, I’ve seen The von Trapp Family Singers, Bill  Nye the Science Guy, actress Butterfly McQueen (of Gone with the Wind fame).

She talked just the way her character, Prissy, talks in the movie. McQueen was so  gracious and so interesting; she played the guitar and sang for us, talked about a project she was embarking on about cultivating Harlem gardens to help beautify that neighborhood (a precursor to Bette Midler’s New York City Restoration Project which still thrives today). She finished with a long Q&A and photo-taking session with attendees.

The wildest act I saw was Chuck Berry who performed in, of all places, Pawtucketville Memorial School, up on West Meadow Road. He sang all his hits, even did his famous duck walk and rocked that small student hall like it was Madison Square Garden.

The most moving program I got to see was The Yale Whiffenpoofs, the oldest collegiate a capella group in the country/ I saw them when they appeared for The Parker Lectures back in the ’70s and when they visited again this year, 2025. Their singing is as deeply affecting as it was fifty years ago.

Joe Markiewicz and I have been friends for fifty-six years, fifty-seven this September if we don’t kick the bucket before then/ We often fondly recall our trips together to The Parker Lectures through the years. The memory we resurrect a lot is the documentary about a Gloucester fisherman and his trawler. Joe and I noticed that clearly the gigantic tuna the old sea captain claimed to have caught at the film’s rousing end was a phony fish, used for dramatic effect, a fake. “Throw in that fake tuna!”, we joked, and still joke, whenever we need a laugh.

Lowell Memorial Auditorium in the 1960s

Yale Whiffenpoofs

Lipizzaner Stallions

“Miracle of the White Stallions” movie poster

Vienna Boys Choir

Actress Butterfly McQueen

Chuck Berry doing his “duck walk”

Bill Nye the Science Guy