RichardHowe.com – Voices from Lowell & Beyond

L’Etoile – A Star on Prince Street, Chapter 10

Two years ago, Louise Peloquin began sharing excerpts from L’Etoile, a French-language newspaper published in Lowell from 1886 to 1957. At my urging, she has agreed to compile some of her previous posts with added contextual information into a book manuscript to be called, L’Etoile: A Star on Prince Street. Starting this week, Louise will present draft chapters from the book in serial form here on the blog. Today, we have another installment.

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L’Etoile – A Star on Prince Street, Chapter 10

Chapter 10 – Use Your Tongue!

By Louise Peloquin

L’Etoile regularly included dispatches and excerpts from European press agencies and never derogatorily compared the language usage on both sides of the Atlantic. Establishing a hierarchy of French authenticity according to its variations of accent or choice of terminology was considered both absurd and dangerous. L’Etoile acknowledged the validity and value of its readers’ tongue and systematically demonstrated how maintaining one’s linguistic heritage was an asset rather than a liability for the French-Canadian immigrant. L’Etoile always called for ethnic pride.

Many young Lowellians courageously served in World War I and, among them, many of French-Canadian descent. Bilingualism was an asset on the battle fields of the Somme, L’Aisne and other hot spots. The following excerpt reports on French teaching to the military.

LEtoile, July 9, 1917

“L’enseignement du français aux militaires

Le bureau de l’instruction publique du Massachusetts va faire donner des cours de langue française aux soldats américains de cet Etat qui iront en France. Ce fait prouve une fois de plus que la connaissance du français ne peut nuire à personne, au contraire; en sorte que les Franco-Américains, sollicités parfois d’abandonner leur langue maternelle parce que l’anglais est officiel en ce pays, auraient bien tort d’écouter ces gens qui, la plupart du temps, ayant perdu leur propre langue, font preuve du zèle des renégats pour engager les autres à suivre leur mauvais exemple.

Savoir deux langues, a dit un pédagogue éminent, c’est être deux fois homme. Il y a certainement une supériorité pour quiconque possède l’anglais et le français comme les conscrits franco-américains s’en apercevront une fois rendus en France. Ils trouveront alors fort commode, et même avantageux, de savoir parler le français.

L’heure est donc venue de nous féliciter d’avoir eu l’intelligence et le bon sens, en dépit des chauvins et des francophones à courte vue, par des sacrifices considérables, de conserver ce bel héritage, le doux parler qui nous vient du pays de nos ancêtres que nous sommes appelés aujourd’hui à défendre, en commun avec les autres races qui habitent les Etats-Unis, contre la barbarie teutonne.

Nous continuerons donc à faire apprendre le français à nos enfants, sans préjudice pour l’anglais qui est la langue officielle de cette république, celle qui sert de truchement à toutes les classes de citoyens.

Pour terminer, voici quelques renseignements sur les cours de français pour les militaires:

Le projet a reçu l’approbation du général Sweetser, commandant en chef des troupes de la Garde Nationale de notre Etat. Les instructeurs seront tous des citoyens américains de langue française n’ayant pas l’âge militaire et, par conséquent n’étant pas atteints par la loi de conscription. Les cours ont été préparés par les officiers français qui dirigent actuellement l’école d’entraînement d’officiers de L’Université Harvard. Ces cours comprendront la conversation familière et l’enseignement des termes et expressions militaires. On apprendra aux officiers et aux soldats américains ce que sont les monnaies et les mesures françaises, les formations de l’armée française, les termes géographiques français.

L’Etat paiera l’instruction ainsi donnée aux troupes.

Les troupes de l’armée régulière pourront suivre cet enseignement tout comme la Garde Nationale. On portera une attention toute particulière à la prononciation. Chaque classe comprendra environ 20 élèves.

Tous les officiers paraissent enthousiasmés du projet du bureau de l’Instruction Publique. Les instructeurs doivent être nommés prochainement. On assure que plusieurs Américains d’origine française vont figurer au nombre de ces instructeurs.

La faveur dont jouit actuellement la langue française dans le Massachusetts s’est étendue jusqu’à l’Etat de New York. En effet, les dépêches nous apprennent que les nombreux marchands de langue française de Plattsburg , où se trouve le vaste camp d’entraînement d’officiers, ont pris la résolution de ne parler que le français aux militaires qui fréquenteront leurs établissements, pour leur apprendre à converser dans cette langue.

On sait que la population de Plattsburg est, pour les deux tiers, composée de personnes dont les pères sont venus du Canada.

Le chef de police Sénécal a donné l’ordre à tous ses agents franco-américains de répondre en français à toute question qui leur sera posée par les hommes en uniforme.

Retour des choses d’ici-bas. Après nous avoir vilipendés, insultés, honnis, parce que nous ne voulions pas perdre ce trésor inappréciable, la connaissance de la plus belle langue au monde, nous la voyons aujourd’hui enseignée par nécessité dans les camps militaires des Etats-Unis. Quelle leçon pour les fanatiques d’Ontario, qui veulent fermer les écoles françaises! Puissent-ils ouvrir enfin les yeux à la lumière!

Dans tous les cas, il est d’ores et déjà certain que cette grande guerre aura eu un résultat inattendu aux Etats-Unis, en familiarisant des centaines de milliers d’officiers et de soldats américains avec la langue française. Nous sommes convaincus qu’à leur retour de France – ceux qui ne se seront pas tombés au champ d’honneur, bien entendu – fiers de pouvoir s’exprimer en français, nous honoreront de leur estime, pour avoir conservé, en dépit de tout, cette belle langue qu’ils auront appris à aimer, et ils s’apercevront alors  que la légende du patois canadien-français n’était qu’un mythe.

C’est bien le cas de dire: A quelque chose malheur est bon.”

“Teaching French to the Military

     The Massachusetts Public Education Bureau will have French courses given to American soldiers of the state bound for France. This fact proves once again that the knowledge of French cannot harm anyone, on the contrary. Franco-Americans, urged at times to abandon their mother tongue because English is the official language in this country, would be very mistaken to listen to these people who, most of the time, having lost their own language, demonstrate the renegade’s zeal to engage others to follow their bad example.

Knowing two languages, said an eminent pedagogue, is being twice the human being. There is certainly a superiority in whoever masters English and French, as the Franco-American conscripts will realize once they are in France. They will find it very practical and even advantageous to know how to speak French.

If Mr. Harold Gosselin, a young compatriot from New Hampshire, was named secretary of General Pershing’s staff in France, it is precisely because he knows both languages well. It is a great honor, owed in large part to his knowledge of French.

The time has therefore come to congratulate ourselves for having the intelligence and the common sense, despite the chauvinists and the short-sighted francophobes, to conserve this beautiful heritage, this sweet language which comes to us from our ancestors’ country, the land we are called today to defend, along with other Americans, against Teutonic barbarity.

We shall thus continue to have our children learn French, without prejudice to English, which is the official language of this republic.

To conclude, here is information on the French courses for the military:

The project received approval from General Sweetser, commander in chief of the National Guard troops of our state. These instructors will all be French-language American citizens who are not of military age and therefore are not concerned by the enlistment. The courses were prepared by the French officials who presently manage the Harvard University officer training school. These courses will include daily conversation and teaching military terms and expressions. The American officers and soldiers will be taught about French currency and measurements, French army formations, French geographical terms.

The Federal Government will pay for the instruction given to the troops.

     The regular army troops will be able to follow this teaching exactly like the National Guard. Special attention will be given to pronunciation. Each class will be made up of 20 students.

All of the officers seem to be enthusiastic about the Public Education Bureau project. The instructors will soon be named. It is assured that many French-origin Americans will be among them.

The favor which the French language presently enjoys in Massachusetts has spread all the way to the state of New York. Indeed, dispatches inform us that the many French-language merchants of Plattsburg, where the vast officer training camp is located, have resolved to speak only French to the members of the military who patronize their establishments in order to teach them to converse in this language.

We know that two thirds of Plattsburg’s population is made up of people whose fathers came from Canada.

Police Chief Sénécal ordered all Franco-American agents to respond in French to all questions posed by the men in uniform.

This great war will have an unexpected result in the United States by familiarising hundreds of thousands of American officers and soldiers with the French language. We are convinced that upon their return from France – those who will not have fallen on the field of honor, of course – proud of having been able to express themselves in French, will honor us with their esteem for having preserved the beautiful language which they will have learned to love, and they will then realize that the legend of a French-Canadian ‘patois’ was only a myth.

It is indeed the case to say – out of bad comes good; every cloud has a silver lining.”

The following editorial brings up the skewed diehard debate about linguistic “purity.”

L’Etoile, July 14, 1917

“Le dialecte canadien

Beaucoup de gens ont été induits en erreur par le correspondant à Washington du Courier-Citizen, qui annonça que M. François-Xavier Delisle, secrétaire particulier du congressman Rogers de Lowell, venait d’entrer dans l’état-major du général Pershing en France comme interprète, avec le grade de lieutenant ‘vu sa connaissance du pur parler français et du DIALECTE canadien.’

Delisle parle et écrit le français, sans ajouter inutilement son ‘dialecte canadien,’ qui était de nature à faire croire que le dialecte parlé dans les centres franco-américains et par les habitants de la province de Québec diffère essentiellement du véritable français.

La légende du patois canadien est difficile à déraciner, et c’est pourquoi nous sommes un peu chatouilleux sous ce rapport.

Mais le fait est que nous parlons un dialecte français au sens strict du mot, tout comme les Bretons parlent le dialecte breton, les habitants des autres provinces de France s’expriment dans leur dialecte, quand naturellement ils parlent français. D’après les dictionnaires, un dialecte est une variété régionale d’une langue. Il y a le dialecte parisien, autrement dit le ‘Parisian French’ si cher aux Américains qui ont cru l’apprendre dans les high schools.

Webster, de son côté, dit qu’un dialecte est une façon de parler particulière à une région, comme le dialecte anglais de Yorkshire. Kittredge ajoute qu’un dialecte n’est pas ‘une langue littéraire corrompue.’

Les habitants des Etats-Unis ont leur dialecte, celui de Boston qui diffère quelque peu de celui de New York, de Chicago, de la Nouvelle Orléans, de San Francisco. Mais personne n’osera prétendre que la langue parlée généralement aux Etats-Unis n’est pas l’anglais. Pourquoi alors les Canadiens de Québec et les Franco-Américains ne parleraient pas le français?

1. 1. Delisle ne sait pas une autre langue française que celle que ses compatriotes de Lowell et de la Nouvelle Angleterre parlent dans leurs foyers. Son ‘pur français’ est celui-là, et nous sommes convaincus qu’il saura se faire mieux comprendre des Français de France que les élèves des high schools qui s’imaginent avoir appris le ‘Parisian French.’ “

“The Canadian Dialect

      Many people are lead into error by the Courrier-Citizen’s Washington correspondent who announced that Mr. François-Xavier Delisle, private secretary of Lowell Congressman Rogers, had just joined General Pershing’s staff as interpreter with the rank of lieutenant because of his knowledge of pure French and of the Canadian DIALECT.

The term ‘dialect’ mystified many people.

It is obvious that Mr. Delisle is simply speaking of the French which he learned with his family and on the benches of the Collège Saint Joseph with his other classmates. This knowledge of French won him the post of interpreter and we congratulate him. The Courrier-Citizen should have simply mentioned the fact that Mr. Delisle speaks and writes French without uselessly adding his ‘Canadian dialect’ which leads to believe that the dialect spoken in Franco-American communities and in the province of Québec essentially differs from real French.

The legend of the Canadian patois is difficult to uproot, which explains why we are a bit touchy about the topic.

But the fact is that we speak a French dialect in the strict meaning of the word, much like the inhabitants of Brittany speak the Breton dialect and the inhabitants of other French provinces express themselves in their own dialect. Naturally, they all speak French. According to the dictionaries, a dialect is a regional variety of a national language. There is the Parisian dialect, otherwise known as ‘Parisian French’ which is so dear to Americans who believe to have learned it in high school.

Webster says that a dialect is a way of speaking which is particular to a region, like the English dialect in Yorkshire. Kittredge adds that a dialect is not a ‘corrupt literary language.’

The inhabitants of the United States have their dialect, that of Boston differs slightly from that of New York, of Chicago, of New Orleans, of San Francisco. But no one would claim that the language generally spoken in the United States is not English. Why then would the Canadians of Québec and the Franco-Americans not speak French?

Mr. Delisle does not know any language other than that which his compatriots in Lowell and in New England speak in their homes. That is his ‘pure French’ and we are convinced that he will be able to make himself better understood by the French people in France than the high school students who imagined they learned ‘Parisian French.’ “

Ceaselessly, indefatigably, unabashedly,  L’Etoile insisted on maintaining pride.

L’Etoile, April 4, 1925 editorial excerpts

“Plus de Fierté, de Grâce!

L’on veut se donner des apparences d’Américain et l’on croit, pour cela, qu’il faille trahir les siens et renier tout son passé. Croit-on, ma foi, qu’on prendra pareil personnage au sérieux? L’on se trompe bien, car le véritable Américain, qui a le culte du passé, respecte surtout celui qui sait se tenir debout, sans gêne….

Heureusement que la fierté n’est pas encore morte chez les Franco-Américains. Elle est plutôt assoupie et il ne suffirait, pourtant, qu’un souffle vivifiant pour  la faire relever, l’exalter et lui faire accomplir de grandes choses.”

“More pride, please!

One wants to give oneself the appearance of being American and one believes that, in order to do so, it is necessary to betray one’s own and to deny one’s past. Does one honestly think that such an individual will be taken seriously? One would be greatly mistaken because the real American is the one who honors ancestral heritage, who stands tall, unashamed….

Fortunately, pride is not yet dead among Franco-Americans. Instead, it is somnolent. However, it would only take an energizing nudge to raise it up, exalt it and allow it to accomplish great things.”

Lowell Politics: October 18, 2026

Last Sunday afternoon, I sat at my kitchen table and filled in the ovals on my 2026 state election ballot. Earlier that day in my newsletter, I had described the eight ballot questions and the consequences of yes or no votes, so I felt well-prepared to mark my ballot. Imagine my shock when I got to the end of the ballot and found a ninth ballot question that I had completely missed when composing my newsletter.

I share that story to illustrate the complexity of this year’s ballot which contains twelve state election offices; a handful of Greater Lowell regional school committee seats; and nine ballot questions. All appear in three languages: English, Spanish and Khmer.

Whether you’re voting by mail, voting early in person, or voting on election day in the traditional manner, I urge you to review the ballot questions in advance, decide how you’re going to vote, and create a written answer key for yourself to use when you have the ballot in front of you. Doing that will increase the odds that you will answer all the questions and that your answers will reflect your intent.

That said, here is a concise statement of each of the nine ballot questions and a consequence of a yes or no vote on each. This list includes Question 9, which I missed in last week’s newsletter:

Question 1 – Public Records – A YES vote would apply the Public Records Law to the governor and legislature which under the current law are exempt. A NO vote would keep the system as is.

Question 2 – Public Defenders Unionization – YES would permit employees of the Committee for Public Council Services, the entity that represents indigent defendants in criminal proceedings, to form a union and collectively bargain, something current law prohibits. A NO vote would keep the system as is.

Question 3 – Combined Primary Elections – YES would eliminate separate party primaries and would have all candidates run together regardless of party in the primary election with the top two finishers advancing to the general election. A NO vote would keep the system as is.

Question 4 – Election Day Voter Registration – YES would allow a person to register to vote at the polling place on election day provided they present identification (including address) and sign a statement under oath that the information provided is accurate (with criminal penalties for false statements). A NO vote would keep the system as is, where registration must be done prior to the election. A NO vote would keep the current system.

Question 5 – Cap on State Revenue – YES would limit state revenue to the amount raised the prior year increased by the percentage wages increased in the prior three years with any excess being returned to taxpayers. NO would keep the current system.

Question 6 – Establish and Finance a “Nature for All Fund” – YES would divert 50% of existing sales and use taxes on sporting goods, RVs, and golf courses to a Nature for All Fund that would be used for natural conservation. NO would not create this fund.

Question 7 – Single family home minimum lot size – YES would allow a single-family home to be constructed on a lot at least 5,000 square feet in size that has 50 feet of road frontage and access to public sewer and water services. No would make no change to existing law.

Question 8 – Repeal legalization of marijuana – YES would repeal the law that made it legal to sell recreation marijuana. NO would leave that law intact.

Question 9 – Preserve the stricter gun control law passed by the legislature in 2024 – YES would retain the enhanced gun control law. No would repeal it. NOTE: Be careful of this question. It seeks to remove gun control restrictions that were imposed by the state legislature two years ago. Since the object of the question is to repeal the law, you might naturally feel you should vote against this effort which would suggest you should vote no. However, the way the question is worded, if you wish to retain the law and the stricter gun control provisions, you must vote yes.

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The ever-increasing cost of operating the Lowell Fire Department came up at this week’s council meeting and at the prior one. (The council is back meeting each week after its twice-monthly summertime schedule.)

At the October 6, 2026, meeting, Mayor Erik Gitschier and Councilor Corey Robinson had a joint motion that requested the City Manager “reach out to all tax exempt, community partners such as UMass Lowell, Middlesex Community College, Lowell Housing Authority, etc., to explain the current fire staffing situation and ask for voluntary assistance with preventing brownouts.”

The motion passed on a voice vote, although I can’t believe any of the councilors realistically believe that the entities in the city that are exempt from paying local taxes under state law will significantly help fund the city’s fire department overtime. Every one of those entities has their own fiscal challenges so other than small, symbolic contributions to be able to say, “we’re trying to help,” that approach won’t do much to ease the overtime cost crisis.

The Fire Department came up this past week (October 13, 2026) on a motion by Councilor Belinda Juran requesting the City Manager “have proper departments explain benefits and costs of having firefighters and fire trucks respond to non-fire calls (including EMS and helipad calls) and the costs and feasibility of alternatives.”

Perhaps recognizing how complicated the fire department funding issue is, Councilor Juran sought a detailed explanation of why the fire department operates as it does with some options for how it might operate differently. In her opening remarks, Councilor Juran gave a detailed explanation of what she was looking for, so I’ll let her words speak for themselves with this transcript, which begins at 33:51 of the YouTube recording of the meeting:

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I know that residents want us in government to provide safety whenever possible, including from fire, from crime, and medical emergency. And obviously that means supporting our fire department, police department, and local EMTs. And we’d all like the necessary equipment and expertise to be immediately available to us whenever we need it. But we also know we can’t have a fire truck, a police cruiser, and an ambulance on every corner along with their related trained team members. So as we have all been digging into the fire department overtime question, I think we need to better understand how our resources are being used and whether in the long run there are things we can do differently to do them better.

We’ve heard about fire trucks responding to medical emergencies even though we have EMTs and ambulances in the city. And I think there may be good reasons why that’s the case, but there are also costs to such responses. And the city council, I and other residents need to fully understand both the benefits and the costs so that we can make informed decisions.

Answers like, “Well it’s always been done this way might be part of the explanation, but I don’t think that allows us to think about whether there are other approaches. Um for instance maybe better triaging requests for help can avoid having to send a fire truck and a police car and an ambulance to every situation. Perhaps we need more ambulances in the city so firefighters and their trucks don’t have to be called out to act as EMTs. I understand that most firefighters are EMTs, but not all of them are. So, how do we actually ensure that we’re helping people when we send firefighters to medical calls?

We had a discussion last week about the helipad at the hospital and the fact that it has or doesn’t have a fire suppression system. So would having one there, a fire suppression system at the helipad, eliminate the need to have the fire department wait for hours for a potential helicopter crash landing as our mayor suggested last week and if so what is the cost?

We seem to have a structural problem with staffing with overtime with how the resources are being used and I don’t think we can simply throw more money at the situation even if we had the money and say that’s appropriate. We may need to think about doing things somewhat differently. I know I’m not someone who tends to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but I think we need to at least understand if we can change some things or why we can’t rather than merely assuming that the status quo is the best way. And then if changes are appropriate but it may not be possible to make them immediately or even you know over a couple of years but we should have a vision for where we’re heading rather than just continuing on a path because it’s easy. So I think you know this kind of deep discussion would benefit all of us. Thank you.

A serious response to this motion could provide important information to councilors and to the community on how to address this issue, but whether a serious response will be forthcoming remains to be seen. Bureaucratic inertia and political pressure make that unlikely.

For as long as I’ve been following Lowell politics – which is for more than half a century – the cost of operating the Lowell Fire Department has been controversial, so this is nothing new. Still, if you believe that government is capable of rational action, getting a complete picture of what goes into these decisions is critical.

I’ll suggest some questions I think would be helpful to be answered by the city’s response to Councilor Juran’s motion, but first some observations.

Here are some facts from the official Lowell Fire Department (LFD) webpage:

• The LFD (is supposed to have) 215 firefighters
• There are 13 “companies” (i.e., engine, ladder or rescue trucks)
• Those companies are “strategically located around the city”
• Besides fires, LFD also responds to “emergency medical services, hazardous materials incidents, ice and water rescues/recoveries, automobile accidents, including extrications, and technical and high-angle rescues.”
• Besides staffing the companies, LFD has specialized units for Administration, Fire Prevention, Fire Investigation, and Hazardous Materials
• 109 firefighters are EMTs and 2 more are EMT Paramedics

Although not on the official website, I believe the 13 companies are deployed to eight fire stations which are located at:

• Moody Street (LFD HQ)
• Gorham Street
• Lawrence Street
• Branch Street
• Pine Street
• High Street
• Old Ferry Road
• West Sixth Street

My first question is, why is 13 pieces of equipment deployed at 8 locations the optimum organization of the Lowell Fire Department? Did a strategic analysis reach this result? If yes, was it in writing and can it be shared with the public?

In the past, there were far more than 8 fire stations in Lowell, however, all but 8 have closed. When and why did the others close? What was the thinking behind closing them? In the aftermath of closing those stations, did response time increase? Were the consequences of closing those stations quantified in any way? If yes, can that information be shared with the public?

There are at least two unique characteristics of Lowell that must be acknowledged in this analysis. First, the city has two major rivers (Merrimack and Concord) that impede trafficability and increase fire department response time, especially of second and subsequent units. Second, much of the city is densely populated and constructed, so the importance of a rapid and strong response to a fire in a built-up area is critical to prevent its spread.

(While response time is critical, it is no guarantee. On July 10, 2014, a fire on Branch Street killed seven people, even though that building was fewer than 100 yards from the Branch Street fire station which promptly responded to the blaze.)

Some on the council seem focused on the fire department providing fire suppression services at Lowell General Hospital when air ambulances arrive at or depart from the hospital’s helipad. The need for contingent, on-scene fire suppression capabilities is not simply to be there in case a helicopter crashes. Certain characteristics of a helicopter (as opposed to a fixed-wing aircraft) make the helicopter uniquely susceptible to fire at takeoff/landing and engine startup/shutdown. It has something to do with a lot of flammable fuel running through hoses that might leak onto super-hot engine parts, all sitting above the passenger compartment in a place that the pilots cannot see. Still, there are options beyond having a fire truck standing by. I believe the Mass General helipad in Boston, which sits on top of a high-rise building, has an automated system much like sprinklers within a building. Before getting into the feasibility of such a system in Lowell, an important question about the helipad is, how much does supporting it with a fire truck cost the city? Yes, there’s the wear and tear on the vehicles, but if the firefighters are on duty and being paid anyway, where are the savings? Would eliminating that duty allow the city to reduce staffing and alleviate overtime costs?  I’m not sure if it would.

A similar but much more consequential issue involves the fire department responding to non-fire incidents such as car accidents and medical emergencies. Certainly, if you’re having a heart attack and the fire department will arrive with a defibrillator in five minutes whereas the EMTs will only get there in twelve, you want the fire department to respond to medical calls. However, the city could modify its contract with the EMT service to increase its staffing to the point that EMTs would arrive as quickly as the fire department. Would that save money while offering the same level of protection? Perhaps, since privately employed EMTs likely earn less than firefighters working for the city. But since the firefighters are working anyway, how much money would be saved by not having them respond to medical calls? I suppose that fewer trips for the fire vehicles would make them last longer, but would such a change enable a reduction in the number of fire personnel needed per shift? Unlikely.

And would such a change be possible even if it was desirable and would save costs? I assume such a change in working conditions would have to be negotiated with the firefighters’ union. My guess is that the union would not be amenable to such a change because it would substantially decrease the number of calls fire units must respond to, and having those numbers higher rather than lower carries more weight in contract negotiations. (I also believe firefighters who become EMTs receive a salary stipend for having that qualification.)

Speaking of the firefighters’ contract, including it or a summary of its terms and conditions in the city’s response to Councilor Juran’s motion would clarify this situation. You will recall that last spring when City Manager Tom Golden proposed laying off several firefighters, a Superior Court judge issued an injunction against doing that because the relevant contract between the city and the union set a minimum number of firefighters that must be employed by the city and the layoff would have dipped below that number.

Hopefully the City Manager’s response to the Juran motion also clarifies exactly who is a member of the firefighters’ union which is Lowell Firefighters International Association of Firefighters Local 853 (IAFF Local 853). As I understand it, every firefighter from the newest recruit to the senior deputy chief is a member of that same bargaining unit. Only the fire chief is excluded. If that’s true, it means that the fire lieutenant in command of a vehicle or the deputy chief in charge of a shift are in the same union as every firefighter under their command. In that case, can an officer discipline a firefighter? What if the firefighter files a grievance against the action? Whose side does the union take: the officer’s or the firefighter’s? (I know the Lowell Police Department has separate unions for patrol personnel and for superior officers and the School Department has separate unions for teachers and administrators, but I don’t believe the Fire Department has a similar split.)

One thing I don’t expect to find in this forthcoming report is a breakdown of the politics involved. The firefighters’ union is politically active as is their right. One way they get involved is through campaign contributions.

If you go to the Office of Campaign and Political Finance website and search the “contributor” field for “Local 853” (for Lowell Firefighters International Association of Firefighters Local 853), the site returns 280 donations totaling $45,809. Scrolling through that list of campaign contributions, you find some made to current city councilors. Here are the ones I found (using 2017 as a starting point):

• Corey Robinson
  • $150 on 7/8/2021
  • $150 on 10/27/2022
  • $250 on 9/20/2023
  • $1000 on 6/6/2025
  • $1000 on 7/22/2026
  • Total – $2550
• Erik Gitschier
  • $150 on 7/8/2021
  • $150 on 11/9/2022
  • $250 on 5/30/2023
  • $1000 on 4/3/2025
  • Total – $1550
• Rita Mercier
  • $100 on 4/26/2017
  • $100 on 10/10/2017
  • $100 on 10/4/2019
  • $150 on 6/5/2021
  • $250 on 10/14/2023
  • Total – $700
• Sokhary Chau
  • $250 on 10/30/2023
  • Total – $250
• Vesna Nuon
  • $250 on 6/24/2023
  • Total – $250
• Kim Scott
  • $250 on 6/30/2023
  • Total – $250

There’s nothing nefarious about a city union making campaign contributions or with councilors accepting them. Still, it is useful information to have when evaluating this issue.

Political involvement is not limited to campaign contributions. Voting is a big part of it, especially when turnout in city elections is so poor. Remember, Lowell has approximately 125,000 residents with about 60,000 registered to vote. Yet in a city council election, barely 10,000 people vote. While councilors undoubtedly strive to do what’s best for everyone in the city, if they want to be reelected, they must reflect the wishes of a majority of the 10,000 residents who vote. In such a small electoral universe, a numerically small but highly motivated group, such as the members of the firefighters’ union, their families and supporters, can have an outsized influence in the outcome of an election.

Two final points: First, City Manager Golden has cited a small but significant number of firefighters who, statistically speaking, are abusing their sick time which in turn increases overtime costs to replace the absent firefighters. Because of employee confidentiality laws, the information forming the basis of that accusation cannot be made public. Nevertheless, if abuse is taking place, the administration must be diligent in pursuing disciplinary measures within the constraints of the collective bargaining system but should also release more information about the abusive practices. That information can be sanitized to retain individual worker confidentiality while at the same time educating the public so that voters have a full view of what’s going on.

Second, like any other municipal workforce, firefighters retire from time-to-time on a schedule that works best for them. There are no advance notice requirements for retirements so conceivably a firefighter could decide to retire, submit their papers, and be gone in just a few weeks. However, the process of replacing that retired firefighter seems to take years rather than weeks. Serving as a firefighter requires extensive, complicated training. You can’t just hire someone off the street, give them a uniform and leave it to on-the-job-training to get the new hire up to speed. However, there seems to be a substantial shortage of slots available in the state’s firefighter training academies. I assume this affects communities across the Commonwealth and not just Lowell. For that reason, pushing the state legislature to increase and fund more training opportunities for new firefighters to speed the journey from hiring a new firefighter to having that person fully available for duty might be the most important factor in curbing Lowell’s fire department overtime costs.

Hopefully, the response to Councilor Juran’s motion will address some of these issues.

Chicago, Again

Ten years ago, my family went to Chicago to look around. We had never been there. The city made a deep impression on us, so we returned last week for another look. If anything, the latest visit topped the first one. If anyone in the Lowell, Mass., area is reading this post and considering going there, I would say, Go for it! From Lowell, it’s easy to fly out of the Manchester, N.H., airport, less than one hour away. The flight is about two hours. Chicago has two airports, O’Hare and Midway. We arrived at Midway and took a taxi to our hotel downtown, about a half hour drive. O’Hare has mass transit service to the city. We stayed in the Michigan Avenue part of the city which offers easy access to most of the main attractions like the Art Institute and its superstar collection of American, European, and World artworks. If you know the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, you know what you’ll see, from American Gothic by Grant Wood to “Sunday in the Park with George” (A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte) by Seurat.

Another spot not to miss is Millennium Park not far from the Art Institute. The centerpiece is a sculpture that may be the most successful work of public art in the country, Cloud Gate by Anish Kapoor, a massive mirror-finished steel sculpture in an organic shape that earned it the nickname “The Bean.” The reflective surface constantly changes and the scene on land and in the sky changes by the minute.

Another day in the late afternoon we joined about 200 people on a cruise on the Chicago River with a guide who described the city’s astounding architecture, a pile up of vast warehouses, high rises, and skyscrapers in various forms. The 90-minute tour was a user-friendly seminar on Chicago history combined with an informative introduction to building design and structural engineering. On the boat we had people from around the US and nations abroad including a lot of runners who were registered for the Chicago Marathon scheduled for the next morning. In front of us were two women wearing blue-and-yellow Boston Marathon windbreakers. The tour boats run constantly, even at night with buildings lit up.

We rounded out our trip with a visit to the Obama Presidential Center on the South Side of the city, about 30 minutes from where we were staying. You can reach it by train (subway), bus, taxi, or private ride. The central building or museum on the campus is called “The Obamalisk” for its unique shape. Inside is the extraordinary story of a man “who went from here to there” on the American civic route. His stops included Hawai’i, Kansas, Indonesia, Harvard University, and New York City before his gig as a community organizer in Chicago, where he met the equally extraordinary Michelle Robinson. Not everyone, I know, but a lot of people find his story inspiring, and moving, to the point that the museum staff places boxes of tissues at strategic locations. I got a little choked up myself reliving the 2008 campaign through video on the second floor. Once the exhibit reaches his presidency, there’s a mock Oval Office where folks can hand their camera to a staff person for a picture of themselves standing at the desk. On floor eight, the space is wide open with windows all around for a panoramic view of the region. Gary, Indiana, on the Lake Michigan shore is right out there in the distance.

The campus includes a branch of the Chicago Public Library and a large building called The Forum with art and cultural exhibits, places to eat, and event spaces. The grounds are landscaped in the Prairie style with local plants as well as formal gardens. More artwork enlivens the grounds including a water feature with two round forms made by Maya Lin, a reference to the Obamas’ relationship.

The photo below if from opening day in June 2026. We were there on a Sunday of a holiday weekend and did not find the place uncomfortably crowded. Tickets are hard to come by, however, because of the large demand. We reserved tickets last May before the official opening. Now, the tickets are released in batches to manage the attendance. Plan on getting tickets some months ahead if you want to go. It’s worth the wait.

Photo by alphabeta135 courtesy of Wikipedia

I mentioned above my initial visit ten years ago. Here’s what I wrote for the Howe blog at that time. 

Epistolary

Epistolary

By Leo Racicot

I suppose my lifelong love of letters and letter-writing began when I discovered The Letters of Emily Dickinson. I was young, maybe 15 or 16. I also at the same time came across the Letters of Vincent van Gogh.  The discovery was revelatory; the idea that the personal correspondence of the lofty artists I admired — what they thought, where they went, who they knew — had been preserved, was exciting, brought them face-to-face as living, breathing human beings, made them accessible to the degree they became like old friends. After all, weren’t they much like the rest of us? They had their dreams, their fears, their hopes, revealing who they were as people. I still pull Emily Dickinson’s letters down from the shelf every Fall, feeling that Autumn, a season she wrote much about, is the perfect season to re-read her.

When my friend, Joe went away to college, to UMass Amherst, I stayed in Lowell to attend Lowell State Teachers College. It was the first time in four years we were separated. We began a years-long correspondence, a way for us to keep in touch while apart. When he transferred to UMass/Boston and made his dream of living on Beacon Hill come true, the letters continued. Even though we were only a train ride away and did see each other periodically, the allure of the written letter remained. We exchanged hundreds of letters over the years, many of them gems of penpalship. When life took us to different places; he, to Chicago to accompany his brother, John, who was matriculating at Northwestern, me, to Las Vegas, Cambridge, Cape Cod, the habit of staying in touch by pen and paper happily continued. We both saved every letter, often decorating the backs of the envelopes with decals, photo cutouts, sometimes elaborate displays of our shared interests. What the mailman must have thought!  Who cares? We were forging a bond; snail mail creates a patience, a pause for reflection that a phone call is incapable of, especially in today’s culture where the quick click of an emoji is used to express it all. This is why I’ve loved and continue to love letters, even when the friend I’m writing to lives not very far away.

Some of my pen pals did live a distance away; when I was in my late teens, early twenties, I sponsored a young lady, Hsaih Mi-Chu, in China. What a thrill it was for years sending and receiving airmail, seeing the exotic postage, looking at the hieroglyphics of Hsaih’s Chinese script (along with her handwritten letters, a page translating her words, her life stories, her adventures, would be included) She and her letters brought the world closer…

Hsaih Mi-Chu’s letters are stored in my attic as are dozens and dozens of letters from friends (my high school & college pal, Linda Scanlon, college intimate, Roberta McAnespie, Joe’s, of course, who’d often include with his missive delightful newspaper and magazine clippings he thought I’d enjoy). I’ve also kept the dozens of epistles written by editor Winston Leyland who took editorship beyond the usual boundaries into friendship.

And of course, I can’t omit my letters from writer M.F.K. Fisher. Before our friendship blossomed into an enduring love and visits out to her home, Last House, in Glen Ellen, California, we sent letters back-and-forth. Her letters bristled with personal stories, gossipy anecdotes, recipes, scintillating tales out-of-school. My letters to her tried hard to impress. When we first began corresponding, Mary Frances said she thought my writing style made her think I was a wise, old professor in a small, college town, “so polished is your prose”. (later on, she even crafted a short story about an old professor’s last days, The Reunion, in her collection, Sister Age). Wasn’t she shocked when a young fellow in his early thirties showed up at her door! And, wasn’t I shocked, when, following her death, the literary executors of her estate, notified me that our correspondence would be housed along with others in her collection of papers at Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe! Through the years, whenever I need a lift, I visit Schlesinger, spend an afternoon poring through the words of my beautiful friend, my words to her….The M.F.K. connection lives on, in part, with a 30 year continuation of wonderful letters from Mary Frances’ former staff members, good friends, Pat and Marsha Moran. Pat is a fantastic writer in his own right, Marsha, his live-in editor, who also happens to be his wife. In a way, my heart still lingers in bonny Glen Ellen thanks to the epistolary magic they’ve conjured regularly throughout the years; I just had a long, good letter from Pat yesterday.

Looking back, I see I was blessed to become pen pals with several well-known people (If I like and admire someone’s work, I am compelled to write to let them know).

The gay writer, Edmund White, by the time I wrote him, wasn’t much for letter-writing; the culture had made it easier to communicate by email and social media, especially for one as busy as he was. But I have literally thousands of emails from Ed filled with his brilliance, his quick wit, his naughty asides. I treasure them.

Also, in the famous category is travel writer, Jan Morris whom I met during her lecture/book signing at Cambridge Public Library in 1988 when she made the startling comment, “What a joy it was staring out at the audience, seeing your lovely, androgynous face!” Good grief!  We, too, became years-long pen pals, she, often telling me I “must come to my home and share tea and scones with my wife, Elizabeth and me” It seemed wildly improbable that I could ever make a trip to the enchanted woodlands of Wales where they made their home but it was so nice to be invited, whether ingenuous or not.

It was said that the actress, Katharine Hepburn, didn’t like to sign autographs, answer letters from fans. But I have many from her in reply to my sending her a screenplay I’d written specifically with her in mind, Walking Song. She initially warmed to the script and the part I’d designed for her.  She did express concerns that some of the character’s monologues were too long, that at her age she would have difficulties memorizing them. She asked me to trim them down. Long story short — many edited versions of the manuscript travelled back-and-forth to her Turtle Bay home at 244 East 49th Street. She’d always send them back saying, “Still too long!”  Ever hopeful, I kept cutting and cutting and cutting until the day came when she said, “It’s too short. You’ve whittled this thing down to a nub!”  By the time an in-person visit came to pass, I’m afraid the great actress had “gone away with the fairies”, as the Irish say, and that, as they was that re Walking Song which is gathering dust in the attic.

The English wit and eccentric, Quentin Crisp and I exchanged notes and letters in the 1990s. In one of his to me, he said something that has stayed with me all these years. In response to my moaning that my love life was a disaster, Crisp wrote, “My dear boy. There is no more to be said for loving one person than for loving the whole world.”

I found the life and work of the Canadian gay liberation figure, Jearld Moldenhauer fascinating, wrote to tell him so. His place in that movement has, I feel, gone unsung. Activist, journalist, horticulturist extraordinaire, founder of one of the first, if not the first, gay bookstore, The Glad Day bookshops, one in Toronto, one, here in Boston. The list of his credits and talents is endless. My letter found him living in Fez, Morocco, in an architectural wonder, Dar Balmira, an ancient guesthouse with a legendary rooftop garden and art gallery. I thrilled to his descriptions of life among the natives there, so different was it from anything I knew. Jearld, a restless nomad, moved to Manila in the Philippines and we fell out-of-touch.

My whole life, I’ve been lucky to find pen pals who like snail mail as much as I do. For over twenty years now, my good friend, Bob Stone (who managed the Shea household for twenty-six years) and I have been exchanging weekly letters, I throw a movie quiz in with each letter because I know how much he likes the movies of The Golden Age of Hollywood, has the answers to practically every question I throw at him. I love seeing his letters in the front hall.

Lowell historian, Richard Howe, too, is so kind to reply to my maybe too-frequent letters. A polymath, Dick’s interests and work are endlessly fascinating to me and bring a contented pleasure to the winter of my days…

____________________

Pat and Marsha Moran with Barley

Winston Leyland, 1990s

Bob Stone working on my movie quiz

Postcard from Quentin Crisp

Katherine Hepburn at home

Jan Morris, Harvard Square, 1988

Garden rooftop at Dar Balmira

Edmund White on his laptop

M.F.K. Fisher’s typewriter

Roberta McAnespie

Linda Scanlon

Joe writing a letter on the train

The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh

Letters of Emily Dickinson

Richard Howe