The death of George McGovern is something of a milestone for me. I cast my first presidential vote for him in November 1972. The voting age had been lowered to 18 that year in deference to the 18-year-olds who were being drafted to fight in Vietnam. Sen. McGovern opposed the…
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Some photos from yesterday’s tour of Lowell Cemetery:
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“Rogers Hall produced many distinguished alumnae. Among them, Anne Harvey Sexton, a 1947 graduate, was later awarded the Pulitzer price for poetry. Dr. Mona Meehan went on to become the first female chief of staff appointed to a US hospital at St. John’s Hospital, now part of Saints Medical Center. …
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This Saturday (October 20) at 10 am, I will lead one more tour of historic Lowell Cemetery. This tour was initiated by the Greater Lowell Chamber of Commerce for its members, but the Chamber has graciously opened it to the public. The tour will begin at the Knapp Avenue entrance…
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I’m sure that I’m not the first one to make note of this, but one aspect of this election is fundamentally about style: hip versus square. I don’t think Gov. Romney would quarrel with this characterization. He is comfortable in his own skin. As the weeks wear on, however, and…
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For anyone facing surgery, the possibility of pain looms large. Imagine back to a time when options for “anesthesia” were limited to alcohol or the danger of opium. When a Boston dentist demonstrated the “power of ether” back in 1846 at Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. Jospeh Warren – a well-respected surgeon…
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With the election just three weeks away, I started thinking about the last presidential election and discovered that I had not added those results to our “elections” page. I’ll put them there now, but here they are in case you’re interested: 2008 Election Results In Massachusetts in 2008, the presidential…
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In the years before the Civil War, Eli Hoyt was joined by another teenager as employees at Staniel’s drug store. His name was Freeman Ballard Shedd. Shedd was born in Lowell in 1844 and, after working in the drug store for a couple of years, enlisted in the Union Army…
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Although not medicine, another product that emerged from a Lowell drug store was Hoyt’s German Cologne. Eli W. Hoyt was born in Alexandria, New York in 1838. Eli came with his parents to Lowell when he was eight, attended the local school before starting work at thirteen years as a…
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