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On June 6, 1944, American, British, and Canadian troops landed on the shore of Normandy while airborne troops arrived inland. The great battle to seize back northwest Europe from the Germans commenced. As with every other battle in World War II, men from Lowell were involved in D-Day. First Lieutenant…
Read More »John J. Shaughnessy was born in Lowell on October 16, 1917, the son of Edward and Anna O’Donnell of 1091 Gorham Street. He graduated from the Sacred Heart School and Lowell High School. On October 16, 1940 – his 23rd birthday – Shaughnessy registered for the draft at the Elks…
Read More »On Friday, June 10, 2022, at 1 p.m., the Pollard Memorial Library will host a screening of the new film, Jack Kerouac’s Road, followed by an interview with the film’s director, Herménégilde Chiasson, a French-Canadian director, playwright, and journalist who is also the former Lieutenant-Governor of New Brunswick. Part documentary,…
Read More »Boarding School Blues: Chapter 37 By Louise Peloquin Never too many, never too much Sister Claudette wasn’t expecting anyone that evening in the two-hundred-square-foot library adjacent to study hall. The elfin nun in her seventies was bent over a thick black tome and didn’t hear Blanche’s footsteps. Her eyes peered…
Read More »In the middle of St. Patrick’s Cemetery in Lowell, just to the left of the chapel, sits a large rectangular piece of granite inscribed in memory of the graduates of Keith Academy who died while serving in the military during World War II. Located in the former Middlesex County jail…
Read More »William Thomas Callery was born on August 16, 1945, in Lowell. His parents, Francis A. Callery and Mary T. Callery, eventually moved the family to 134 Parker Street which was just a few blocks from Tyler Park. William had four siblings: brothers Francis T. and John J. and sisters Sheila…
Read More »I delivered the following remarks in May 2019 at the Greater Lowell Veterans Council Memorial Day service at the Lowell Memorial Auditorium. For the past several years on Memorial Day and Veterans Day, we’ve made frequent mention of World War I in recognition of the centennial observance of that conflict.…
Read More »“Operation Duke” – 1966 in Vietnam By Dean Contover It was 3:00 a.m. in Qui Nhon, Vietnam when we were awakened by the staff sergeant to go to the mess hall for breakfast and to be briefed. One hundred and eighty-seven engineers were hand-picked for this operation which was to…
Read More »Madame la Première Ministre By Louise Peloquin On May 16th, Emmanuel Macron named Élisabeth Borne Prime Minister. In 1991, under François Mitterrand, Édith Cresson was the first woman to hold the job. The Élysée Palace put out a late afternoon communiqué: “this is the choice of competence at the service…
Read More »Redemption By Babz Clough The Massachusetts Correctional Institute (MCI) at Norfolk was built by the inmates in the 1920s as a community-based prison in what was then rural Massachusetts. The prisoners learned how to lay bricks, how to weld, and how to plumb the buildings. They planted the gardens and…
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