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Please welcome Melissa Franks, our newest contributor to richardhowe.com. In this post, Melissa shares stories from her dad, Bill Franks, but Melissa and I also hope that this is the first of many “Lowell Stories” in which we capture in writing the spoken word stories that breathe life into the…
Read More »Long Ago Lowell Labor Day – (PIP #78) By Louise Peloquin 1924 Labor Day speeches ring true today. Lowell celebrated Labor Day Beautiful program of music, speeches and athletic games executed at South Common yesterday. – Mayor Donovan, Rev. P. Corrigan and Rev. Bakeman spoke. Labor Day was celebrated…
Read More »The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. The Age of Acquiring: A Portrait of Etta and Claribel Cone by Mariel Gabriel is a lush portrait of the burgeoning world of modern art, especially in Paris, in the early 20th century. If you love Paris, if you love…
Read More »There was no Lowell City Council meeting this week so in anticipation of our city’s coming bicentennial, I’ll take a break from current city affairs and look back 200 years to the founding of Lowell. Earlier this month I gave a talk on this topic at the Pollard Memorial Library,…
Read More »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…
Read More »Paperbacks By Susan April Paperback books I stole from the Beaver Brook Mill when it was a department store: The Grapes of Wrath Up the Down Staircase Gone With the Wind. Collinsville. I was twelve. Our house had telephone books and Liberty Mutual pamphlets like First Aid for Slightest Injury…
Read More »The entry below is being cross-posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. Compliments of Hamilton and Sargent: A Story of Mystery and Tragedy on the Gilded Age Frontier by Maura Jane Farrelly is a perfect book for someone who revels in the process of researching a story, over and above being swept…
Read More »In last week’s newsletter, I reported on two items from the August 12, 2025, Lowell City Council meeting. These were the upcoming trip to Switzerland by a city delegation and the Lowell Housing Authority versus vagrants discussion. Today, I’ll cover some other topics from that same meeting. The August 12…
Read More »“Overheard in the Orchard” by Linda Hoffman & Ellen Harasimowicz ISBN 978-0-9742474-0-3 [Copyright © 2025] Linda Hoffman is an artist, writer, and orchardist in Harvard, MA, and photographer Ellen Harasimowicz is a “visual storyteller” in the Boston area. Thirteenth-century Persian poet Rumi writes, “Keep a green tree in your heart…
Read More »Bookstores I Have Known By Leo Racicot College City Book Mart was the first bookstore I discovered and grew to love. It was located in what is now Francis Gatehouse Mills, on Broadway Street. The reason I’d found myself in that neck of the woods is: our Aunt Marie had…
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