February 3rd, 2012
by Marie
President Obama has had an ongoing focus on helping veterans and their families. In his State of the Union remarks last week President Obama announced his plan for American Jobs Act to spur police and firefighter hiring in 2012. This action as well as a plan patterned on FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps are targeted towards helping veterans. Today the details will be revealed for a $1 billion Veterans Job Corps that the White House says “will put up to 20,000 veterans to work over the next five years on projects to preserve and restore national parks and other federal, state and local lands.”
According to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar the Civilian Conservation Corps - established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Depression to put hundreds of thousands of the unemployed to work on projects in government parks and lands - serves as a “very good indicator” of what the administration hopes to accomplish with the Veterans Job Corps.
Read more here at the washingtonpost.com.
Read the White House press statement “President Obama’s Plan to Put Veterans Back to Work” here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room
Election 2012, Politics | 
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February 3rd, 2012
by Marie
In today’s New York Times op-ed colummist Paul Krugman puts former Massachusetts Governor and GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s lack of concern for the poor “in context.” His statement: “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there.” has yet again got the pundits and his opponents all stirred-up. You can read Krugman’s take here and make your own “contextual” evaluation.
Election 2012, Politics | No Comments »
January 31st, 2012
by Marie
The Boston Globe is reporting that the current Chancellor for the Archdiocese of Boston James P. McDonough has decided to step down after six years on the job. Complimenting McDonough for getting the finances of the archdiocese on a sound footing, Cardinal Sean O’Malley announced that he has chosen John E. Straub to fill the role of interim chancellor. Straub currently serves as executive director of finance and operations for central ministries with the Archdiocese. Straub had previously directed the White House’s Office of Administration during the George W. Bush administration.
The timing of McDonough’s leaving coincides with recently released annual financial report for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2011. The January 26 report was accompanied by this statement from the Cardinal:
”The Archdiocese of Boston has greatly benefitted by the financial management of recent years that has achieved and sustained a balanced budget. The stabilization of our finances has led to increased confidence among our many generous benefactors, who provide us the means to invest in our parishes, schools, evangelization and the important mission of serving the poor and those in need. We are aware that there remain challenges to be addressed, but are encouraged by the progress being made in rebuilding our local Church. Going forward, we will maintain our commitment to be a sign of the presence of the Lord to the Catholics of the Archdiocese and the wider community.”
Among the highlights of the report:
- Central ministries, a component of central operations, achieved a balanced budget maintained for second straight year;
- Parish offertory increased 3 percent;
- Enrollment grew in over half of the Archdiocese’s Catholic schools and increased by 1 percent in Boston for the first time in 20 years.
Read the full financial report by linking here to The Pilot. The Globe story can be read here at boston.com.
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January 30th, 2012
by Marie
It is National Catholic Schools Week! The theme for Catholic Schools Week 2012 is “Catholic Schools: Faith. Academics. Service.” The annual observance officially started yesterday – the last Sunday in January and will run all week to February 5. Schools typically celebrate Catholic Schools Week with Mass, open houses and activities for students, families, parishioners and the community at large. Locally, we’ve seen newspaper ads, special coverage in The Pilot and talk about Catholic Schools in our weekly parish bulletins. Many schools celebrate by honoring a distinguished school alum as the Immaculate Conception School did last Saturday with its recognition of ICS grad Kevin Ahern.
Catholic schools have a long and rich tradition in Lowell and in the Merrimack Valley. Of those schools still open and active in Lowell: St. Patrick’s School in the Acre opened in 1852, the Immaculate Conception School in 1880, St. Michael’s in 1889, St. Jeanne d’Arc School in 1910, St. Margaret’s School in 1941, Franco-American School in 1963 (opened as orphanage in 1908) and Lowell Catholic High School in 1989 as the successor to its legacy schools – Keith Academy(1926) and Keith Hall (1926), Keith Catholic, St. Patrick’s HS, St. Joseph’s HS and St. Louis Academy.
Catholic Schools Week – a time for students to celebrate their unique path of learning within the parish, community and nation – will celebrate its 40th anniversary next year.
What are your memories of Catholic schools in Lowell and the Catholic school experience?
Education, History, Lowell, Uncategorized | No Comments »
January 26th, 2012
by Marie
MassMoments reminds us today that when Asa Mercer of Seattle set out to recruit young women of good character to travel to the Northwest and fill the need for teachers in the Washington Territory, he came first to Lowell, Massachusetts. Why New England? Why Lowell? His reasoning was pretty straightforward: “A scarcity of women existed in those far away and newly settled regions, while a superabundance of the fairer sex abounded in New England.” Lowell must have been seen as an opportune place given the way women had flocked to it in the 1830s to work in the mills. The Civil War and the lack of access to raw cotton caused a wide-spread loss of jobs in Lowell. Economic need and a religious zeal caused a small group to answer his call. The overall results of his mission to bring woman teachers – called the “Mercer Girls” - to the west had mixed results – in two trips over 700 were recruited – but many did stay to teach… “about 70% of the women who left New England to be teacher-pioneers remained in the west. Many of their daughters became the teachers of the next generation.”
January 26 …in 1864, a visitor from Seattle held a meeting in Lowell. Asa Mercer explained to his largely female audience that there was a great scarcity of teachers in the Washington Territory. Jobs — and single men — were plentiful. Both were in short supply in Massachusetts. Any woman who could raise the money for her passage would readily find a teaching position — and soon a husband. Mercer also appealed to the women’s sense of duty: “their presence and influence were so much needed” in the West, he told them. In spite of the opportunities Seattle offered, it was unimaginably far away. Only 11 women chose to accompany Mercer on his journey home. These brave teacher-pioneers were long known as the “Mercer Girls.”
Read the full article
here at Massmoments.com.
Note:
Eight ladies from Lowell accompanied by the father of two (Mr. Pearson) were joined by two ladies and a gentleman from Pepperell and one lady from Boston.
From the Lowell Courier – Monday March 14, 1864:
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January 25th, 2012
by Marie
Senator Eileen Donoghue shares her thoughts about her first year in office as the State Senator for the First Middlesex District in a January 2012 0n-line newsletter. Her district includes the communities of Lowell, Dunstable, Groton, Pepperell, Tyngsborough and Westford.
Read it all here.
Greater Lowell, Politics | No Comments »
January 23rd, 2012
by Marie
Don’t miss this important update from the Small Business Assistance Center from Stacie Hargis the Director:
Something just happened to the Center! As the New Year unfolds, the Center is looking forward to a bright 2012 as we have had much success to build on from last year.2011 meant results that made a difference in the communities of the Merrimack Valley! … And we look forward to continuing that success, but with a new name. As of today, the Lowell Small Business Assistance Center will officially be known as theMerrimack Valley Small Business Center.
A reminder:
The Merrimack Valley Small Business Center is a program of Community Teamwork, Inc. in collaboration with Middlesex Community College, the University of Massachusetts Lowell, and the City of Lowell – Division of Planning & Development.
The mission:
The mission of the Merrimack Valley Small Business Center is to provide entrepreneurs from ethnically and economically diverse groups with the education, tools and resources needed to create, sustain or expand viable small businesses.
Check-out the January 2012 Newsletter here.
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January 22nd, 2012
by Marie
Town Library – Precincts 4 & 4A (photo from Town of Tewksbury website)
In a move announced by mail by the Town Clerk and sanctioned by the Board of Selectmen, some Tewksbury voters will again be moving to a new location to cast their ballots. The former Town Clerk had consolidated the voting sites to two handicapped-accessible sites – the new Senior Center on Chandler Street and the fairly new Public Library also on Chandler Street but adjacent to Route 38. It was a move that proved to be controversial with some and did see a bit of a log-jam with snow piles and an outpouring of voters for the special election for the U. S. Senate back in January, 2010.
Tewksbury Senior Center – Precincts 1 & 2 (photo from the Tewksbury Patch)
In an information sheet tucked into the 2012 Census Form envelope, voters learned that Precincts 3 and 3A will be casting ballots at the Lowell Assembly of God Church on Andover Street/Rte. 133 and Precincts 2 and 2A will vote at the Recreation Center on Livingston Street. Added to the Clerk’s voter information notice - with redistricting at the most local level completed – was a list of fifty streets that have precinct changes.
Tewksbury residents and registered voters need to carefully check the Census mailer for this important information. Also, mail back the Census form ASAP.
Recreation Center – Precincts 2 & 2A (photo from the Tewksbury Patch)
Lowell Assembly of God Church – Precincts 3 & 3A (photo from church website)
Election 2012, Greater Lowell, History, Politics | 1 Comment »
January 21st, 2012
by Marie
The editorial in today’s Nashua Telegraph poses an interesting question – “Has the grand tradition of the New Hampshire primary come to an end?” Noting that the three candidates – Jon Huntsman, who bragged about holding 150 events in the state, Rick Santorum and Buddy Roemer (Buddy who?) – who campaigned in New Hampshire relentlessly fell way short in the New Hampshire primary* while Mitt Romney (albeit a New Hampshire landowner) and Ron Paul triumped in slots one and two. It seems that the retail politics enjoyed by New Hampshire voters over the last 60 years has been scooped by technology – the like of Twitter, Facebook and blogs – and definitely by Fox News and its endless candidate debates. The editorial posits:
It started with Nixon, or more accurately, with the 1960 televised debate between a handsome and charismatic John F. Kennedy and a sweating Richard Nixon, whose 5 o’clock shadow made him look like a crook.
Technology continued to change presidential election campaigns, and it’s doing so in ways that are likely to soon make New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary irrelevant. Worst of all, there may be nothing New Hampshire can do about its diminished importance but grin and bear it.
One wonders as well about the importance of Iowa and those caucuses!
Read the full editorial here at nashuatelegraph.com.
*Sidebar:
The state of New Hampshire has held a presidential primary since 1916, but its current importance didn’t emerge until 1952 when – after the state simplified its ballot access laws in 1949 seeking to boost voter turnout – General Dwight Eisenhower demonstrated his broad voter appeal by defeating Senator Robert A. Taft – widely known as ”Mr. Republican” – who had been favored to win the nomination and on the Democratic side when Senator Estes Kefauver defeated incumbent President Harry S. Truman – leading Truman to abandon his campaign for a second term of his own. In 1968 Senator Eugene McCarthy nearly defeated President Lyndon Johnson – sending a strong message that had Johnson declaring: ”I shall not seek, and will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”
Current Events, Greater Lowell, History, Politics | No Comments »
January 21st, 2012
by Marie
MassMoments reminds us that on this day – January 21, 1861 – the Sixth Massachusetts Volunteer Militia was formally organized. In early January 1861, as civil war approached, the men of Massachusetts began to form volunteer militia units. Many workers in the textile cities of Lowell and Lawrence were among the first to join a new infantry regiment, the Sixth Massachusetts Volunteer Militia, when it was formally locally organized on January 21, 1861. The men met regularly to drill. In March, they were issued uniforms and Springfield rifles and told to be ready to assemble at any time. When Fort Sumter was attacked on April 12th, the men of the Massachusetts Sixth knew their days of drilling were over. And the rest is history – the history that is being remembered now as the Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War. There have been many posts on this blog about Lowell and the Civil War as part of the remembrance.
…in 1861, the Sixth Massachusetts Volunteer Militia was formally organized. With war approaching, men who worked in the textile cities of Lowell and Lawrence joined this new infantry regiment. They were issued uniforms and rifles; they learned to drill. They waited for the call. It came on April 15th, three days after the attack on Fort Sumter. They were needed to defend Washington, D.C.. The mood when they left Boston was almost festive. When they arrived in the border state of Maryland three days later, everything changed. An angry mob awaited them. In the riot that followed, 16 people lost their lives. Four were soldiers from Massachusetts. These men were the first combat fatalities of the Civil War.
Read the article
here at MassMoments.com.
History, Lowell, Politics | No Comments »
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