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To celebrate St. Jean-Baptiste Day in 1880, the Lieutenant Governor of Québec, Théodore Robitaille, commissioned Calixa Lavallée to compose O Canada to a patriotic poem by Adolphe-Basile Routhier. Born in Quebec – in 1857, Lavallée moved to the U.S. and lived in Rhode Island where he enlisted in the 4th Rhode Island Volunteers of the Union army during the American Civil War, attaining the rank of Lieutenant.

During and after the war, he traveled between Canada and the United States building his career in music. Lavallée resided in Louisiana, California, and in the French Canadian community of Lowell, Massachusetts where he married an American woman – a Lowell woman, Josephine Gentilly in 1867. During the latter years of his life, Lavallée was the choirmaster at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston and he died in that city in 1891.

On this day – June 24, 1880 – the first performance of O Canada took place at the Congrès national des Canadiens-Français. This song became the national anthem of Canada in 1980.

Official English

O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

Official French

Ô Canada!
Terre de nos aïeux,
Ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux!
Car ton bras sait porter l’épée,
Il sait porter la croix!
Ton histoire est une épopée
Des plus brillants exploits.
Et ta valeur, de foi trempée,
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits.
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits.

In 1996-97, there was a lot of activity in Lowell around a concept called “Lowell: The Flowering City.” At the Gorham Street/Back Central branch of Enterprise Bank you can see a tall sign with the logo from the project, a gesture meant to help shift the nickname of the city from The Spindle City (old) to The Flowering City (new)—or at least to introduce an alernate nickname. It seems that “The Mill City” has stuck longer than “The Spindle City,” however, there are too many nineteenth-century factory cities around to distinguish one of them with “mill city.” Which gets us back to the Flowering City. The concept “blossomed” from an innovative community planning forum that drew more than 150 people to Lowell High School one weekend in 1996. Here’s my post from last June:

In 1996, an illustrated article on the front page of the SUN followed by a community planning workshop involving more than 150 people at Lowell High School brought the concept of a greener Lowell to the front of the city’s brain. The gathering was called the Project Anthopolis Charrette—anthopolis is a neologism that means “flowering city.” The late Peter Stamas coined the term. The purpose of the project was to move Lowell beyond a bricks-and-mortar revitalization, which was well along the way to fulfillment, to a sustainable community development initiative rooted in the distinctive natural and cultural heritage resources of Lowell—those assets that could be cultivated in every sense by the community for all their value. A lavishly illustrated report and plan for achieving the Flowering City vision was produced in 1997 by the Human Services Corp. of Lowell. A few years later, George Duncan of Enterprise Bank raised the Flowering City logo in the Back Central neighborhood with a permanent sign over a new branch bank on Gorham Street.

Much has been accomplished in the past 15 years, some of it inspired by the vision of The Flowering City and more of it the result of hundreds and thousands of decisions made by people at their homes and businesses, by organizations and institutions, and by public agencies whose work affects the natural resources of the city.

Fifteen years later, please share with us what you’ve done, what you see, and how the city looks to you in pictures. We’re past the early spring blossom season, but flowers, vegetables, fruit trees, landscapes, the urban forest, street trees, and more will be at their peak in the next several months. Let’s celebrate and document the season in pictures and words. Lowell has moved beyond the factory town reputation while remaining faithful to its important heritage. The Flowering City vision was meant in part to put forward a new paradigm for the city in an attempt to encourage people to see beyond the flat red surfaces and right angles of the mill-scape and notice more colors, the organic lines, and vitality of the “green-ways and blue-ways” described in the 25-year plan for The Flowering City.