Author Archive

Living Madly: Joann Fabrics Closing is Yet Another Assault on Women By Emilie-Noelle Provost This past February, Leonard Green & Partners, the California-based private equity firm that owns Joann Fabrics, announced that it was closing all 800 of the store’s retail locations. According to news sources, this decision was made…

The town of Dracut, Massachusetts, was incorporated in 1701, covering 21.3 square miles along the Merrimack River and border of New Hampshire. From a population of 1173 people at the time, 439 men of colonial Dracut served in the War of Independence, some 37 percent of residents, according to Donat…

You cannot keep Spring from coming (1) – (PIP #65) By Louise Peloquin Again the blackbird sings; the streams Wake, laughing, from their winter dreams And tremble in the April showers The tassels of the maple flowers. – John Greenleaf Whittier ***** From L’Etoile’s April 1925 columns, on resurrection, fashion and commemoration, L’Etoile –…

The main event at Tuesday’s Lowell City Council meeting was a presentation by Skanska, the city’s project manager, on a new setback in the Lowell High School building project. When workers cut through the cement slab at the bottom of the 1922 building, they discovered that the soil underneath the…

Drifting Through the Southwest By Rich Grady I was on my way to Santa Fe, New Mexico, leaving Colorado in my rearview mirror. I kept the mountains to my east as I drove south through the San Luis Valley, and crossed the Rio Grande River, which starts in Colorado before…

On Tuesday, April 22, 2025, from 4 to 6 pm at UMass Lowell’s O’Leary Library, Room 222, the Department of World Languages and Cultures and the Center for Lowell History will present a free film screening of “LeP’Tit Canada”, which is part of a television series from 1979 the explores…

Back to the City Council – (PIP #64) By Louise Peloquin      L’Etoile recorded Lowell the heartbeat of Lowell. That included coverage on Council meetings. Here are two more briefs. L’Etoile – September 3, 1924 BRIEF CITY COUNCIL SESSION The Council upholds vote to grant a bus license to Eastern Massachusetts…

20250406 April 6, 2025 Tuesday night’s Lowell City Council meeting was concise and, as far as I could tell, controversy free. There were two items discussed that I thought worthy of mention in this newsletter: The city’s new 311 system and funding for local cable television operations. The 311 system…

OPENING DAY By Terry Downes Gazing on emerald to players they shout; All then are favorites, none that day a lout; New bunting billows its red, white and blue Fans for the home team are rooting anew. Run up the pole the flag to salute From widest eyed child to…

John Webb of Boston and Dracut (1611-1668): A Colonial Snapshot By Paul Marion In his History of Dracut (1922), Silas Roger Coburn describes John Evered, also known by the surname Webb, as “the first white man to become a resident on the soil of Dracut, but not, as we have…