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…
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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…
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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,…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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“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…
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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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The Underpass By Susan April The Underpass was a fearful place. A literal underpass of the Boston & Maine railroad at the foot of Middlesex Street by the Lord Overpass. You had to be brave or crazy to take that shortcut. I was both. I never understood the spaghetti of…
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