Background
Recalling feelings associated with specific events during those formative years (1939 -1961)
requires delving into important events of the times. These background happenings occurred at
the end of the Great Depression, during WWII, over the long Russian Communist threat to the
nation including its first successful bomb test of a nuclear device in 1949 and the successful
launch of the Sputnik satellite in 1957. These notable headlines formed our background set of
international events. Included in this list of important other events were the Berlin Airlift, the
McCarthy hearings, HUAC, the Red Scare and the Hungarian Revolution. For anyone interested
in world events, this period provided much to ponder.
On the home front, our emotional focus was usually placed on agreements and some
misunderstandings within the Charbonneau-Bolduc-Ouellette interconnected households. This
brouhaha, sometimes, made us ponder whether Jean-Paul Sartre may have been right when a
main character of his novel, “No exit” states that, “Hell is the other people.”
Between any two persons, there always appears some difference of opinion on how the world
ought to run to reach a satisfactory result. For us, our interlocked families came into near daily
contact with one another, which gave everyone the opportunity to see, feel and hear the pain and,
occasionally, the joys in the lives of the many players, about 25 to 27 individuals.
First generation immigrant families of all types had a habit of sticking together for financial and
emotional security and the reassurance of seeing their close relatives adapt to foreign customs
and the English language while clustered in defined neighborhoods or enclaves located adjacent
to similar enclaves that housed other foreigners like Greeks, Irish, Polish, Jews, Portuguese, etc.
Each neighborhood had its own basic service providers such as grocers, restaurants, milkmen,
bakeries, pharmacies, shoe shops, undertakers and ethnic churches.
Except for essential, weekend visits downtown to trade at large department stores like the Bon
Marche, and Pollard’s, a national-brand supermarket, A&P, Brokerman’s, a super sized butcher
shop, or a family doctor or dentist, there was little reason to ever leave one’s own enclave except
for traveling to work, of course.
Very few people owned a personal automobile, so strangers of all types could meet and greet
each other informally while traveling to a job site. It remains unclear whether any inter-ethnic
friendships ever developed through these transit interactions, however. The local bus line
provided dependable service, Mon. to Sat. from 6:00 am to about 9:30 pm with later hours on
Thurs. to Sat. to accommodate evening shoppers.
Entertainment
or one of several movie houses (Strand, RKO Keith, Merrimack, Rialto, Capital and Royal)
individual progress
Of course, nobody in this large circle of family relations ever read any international texts on
philosophical, socioeconomic or political histories that had marked the development of
the stage of the world drama.
But, news from the outside world did filter down to us, who were living and working in Spindle
City, AKA, Lowell, MA. These news items came to our consciousness through the news reels
shown at the movie houses, our town newspaper, “The Lowell Sun”, the local radio station,
WLLH, and the Readers’ Digest magazine, which my mother enjoyed reading.
Now and again, when visiting the barber shop, a young lad might pick up a copy of Sports
Illustrated, Popular Mechanics, Life or Look magazine plus find a raft of comic books like
Superman, Dick Tracy with his speaker-watch, Mad comics, Bugs Bunny and Donald Duck. For
us, boys from Lowell, the local barber shop became an enticing, literary center very much like
the Boston City Library, but on a less impressive scale.
Of course, the Sunday sermon at the Eglise St-Louis Church on West 6th Street also underlined
for us the sins of the flesh associated with all sexual activity using any form of birth control.
However, “Vatican Roulette” when employed by married couples was okay. The 1950s were
certainly years of limited, sexual freedom, particularly in Massachusetts, for anyone, and
especially Catholics, who were dealing with an active libido.
Before my discovery of the ample supply of the world’s literary treasures found at the Lowell
Public Library (now, the Pollard Library) located in the magnificent City Hall Building
downtown at the V-shaped intersection of Merrimack and Moody Streets, it might be said that
the time that elapsed from my birth in January, 1939 to January, 1953 when my father died, were
years of near-total encapsulation away from the rest of the city, the state of Massachusetts and
the North American Continent. We all experienced life in a time-space bubble akin to Rod
Serling’s Twilight Zone, but without the scary music.
which first happened when I was in the eight grade (1952)
Perhaps, we were not well-informed about the real world of business and politics. Nobody read
“The New York Times”, “The Wall Sreet Journal”, “The Economist”, etc. In a very real sense, the
outside world did not matter to us. Although quite provincial, this was our world and we adapted
to it seemingly well. Actually, it was only in late-1953 that a new black-and-white TV set even
found a home in our living room although a next-door-neighbor and my aunt and uncle, the
Charbonneaus on Fisher Street, each obtained a set, a year or two before.
Political Affiliations
I don’t believe that any relative or family friend ever had a positive word to say about Democrats
at any level of government. Hard-working, French-Canadian manual laborers and local retail
merchants seemed to be in complete agreement regarding the lack of character and the, generally,
odious nature of any person expressing any Democratic opinion, attitude and comment.
Perhaps, the barren, Depression years (1929 to 1939), which were highlighted by business
failures, bank closings, despair, hunger, fatigue, fear, crumbling buildings, hopelessness and
general unemployment had taken a nasty toll on the usual, can-do attitude of poor, blue-collar
manual laborers and, also, the nearly-bankrupt, retail shop owners, who tried to stay above water
and also assist in reducing the misery quotient of their regular customers. The grownups in my
young years had been through hell and back. It had not been a pretty picture, and, maybe, the
Democrats were to blame?
Roosevelt was a Communist according to my grandfather, Paul Charbonneau, the owner-operator
of North End Dairy on Hildreth Street. My mother called President Harry Truman, “That crude,
little man”, a searing comment that only brought general satisfaction to those within hearing
distance.
These Democrats were political scum-bags in Boston politics and elsewhere, Lowell and
Washington, D.C. included. A convicted serial killer might have been better embraced by my
family members than one of those Democrats. Personally, I easily learned to mistrust and despise
these people proving, I suppose, that political osmosis can work wonders in getting new
believers.
Discoveries & Lessons in a Ghetto Town
Lowell: Immigrant town on Merrimack River had all the answers