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Philip A. Donahue passed away on September 17, 2024. (His obituary is available here.) His brother, Richard K. Donahue Jr., delivered his eulogy at his funeral mass at the Immaculate Conception Church in Lowell on September 27, 2024. Richard consented to the publication of his eulogy here: Eulogy for Philip…

Instruction – (PIP #41) By Louise Peloquin A hundred years ago, a call for instruction. L’Etoile, September 3, 1924 Instruction  (Of Liberty)         Our little schoolchildren, with schoolbags strapped over their shoulders, will soon return to school.      Vacation time and endless games will have lasted the lifespan of…

  The Impossible Dream: The 1967 Red Sox The end of another disappointing Red Sox season on Sunday was tempered by a Bob Ryan column in the Sunday Boston Globe about the importance of October 1st in the Red Sox universe. (“It was pivotal day in year that changed it…

The entry below is b eing cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog. Fresh Water for Flowers by Valerie Perrin, translated from a 2018 French publication, is a delicately developing mysterious story about people who are a little offbeat but emerge as complex and interesting characters. The principal character, Violette Toussaint,…

At Tuesday’s Lowell City Council meeting, councilors received a comprehensive presentation from a representative of Commonwealth Care Alliance, a 20-year-old Boston-based nonprofit corporation that has contracted with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to operate the family emergency shelter program housed in the former UMass Lowell Inn & Conference Center in downtown…

From the Saint Laurence to the Merrimack and back By Louise Peloquin For several weeks, Dick Howe has been posting photos of Lowell monuments testifying to the city’s rich and varied past. Although the following monument is located 384 miles to the north, it commemorates the French-Canadian history which links…

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog. Jack Rennie, Chairman and CEO of Pacer Systems, Inc, was a genial and successful businessman in Massachusetts who found his purpose in life not infinitely expanding his corporate interests but in educating the workforce necessary to grow…

There was no Lowell City Council meeting this past week, so I’ll pick up where I left off in my last newsletter and share some more thoughts on elections and mail-in voting. In the aftermath of the September 3, 2024, primary election, people asked me, “Were you surprised by the…

Living Madly: Harvest Home By Emilie-Noelle Provost *This essay is dedicated to my sister Morgan who loves fairs so much she got married on the Ferris wheel at the Franklin Country Fair in Greenfield. **** When I was very young, my family used to go to the Marshfield Fair every…