Date Today: 9/24/2023
When I retired from active participation in a science carrier in 2000, I sensed a motivation to create a memoir book of experiences, which sons, or daughters of other immigrants to this country might find interesting and, perhaps, useful. These memoirs relate to everyday events, situations, hassles, frustrations, and modest successes that occurred over the years.
These stories simply bear witness to history regarding day-to-day events that I experienced while growing up in Lowell, Massachusetts from 1939 to 1963. One might call these tales “history in the buff” or “you were there behind the scenes.” The road was a rocky one, but loaded with unexpected joys and satisfactions.
The main theme is a description of quotidian life in the various immigrant ghettos that dotted the town’s physical landscape, which had been constructed in the 1830s to 1890s for the commercial convenience of the textile and leather industries.
In the town’s self-segregated neighborhoods, a visitor could find the ethnic, cultural, religious, and language preferences of a certain immigrant group while only one mile away that same visitor might enter another ghetto where these personal characteristics (attributes) were all uniquely different.
In this fashion, Greeks, Poles, French-Canadians, Irish, Portuguese, Russian-Jews, etc., could all live together in a relatively small geographic space. To make life more interesting, each ethnic group had its own misconstrued, false understanding on how other people lived and believed. We were all different, and that was OK. We simply accepted that fact.
Important to add, however, that the typical visitor of a ghetto area usually was treated kindly and in a friendly manner. Local ethnic restaurant owners offered the potential guest a warm welcome followed by an invitation to sample the menu of delicious, unusual dishes.
The large industrial corporations worked hand-in-glove with the City Fathers for decades to ensure an efficient and successful delivery of products to the nation-wide market for such goods.
Labor unions and corporation owners did not always see the world on a similar eye-to-eye basis. Strikes, threats of a strike and general grumblings among the populace often made the local news, either through the Lowell Sun or through a local radio station like WLLH.
It is safe to say that the workers in these many, local corporations, the so called “mill rats”, were usually upset with the low wages, poor benefits (no sick leave or retirement benefits) and unsafe working condition found in these plants.
Grumbling everywhere within the city bounds was an accepted way of life in an often-gritty urban environment in need of urban renewal.
However, the streets were kept reasonably clean for the most part. This was a blessing!
Memoir Book: “Discoveries and Lessons in a Ghetto Town”
The paper-back book filled with these great personal adventures is presently being composed as you read these lines.
Estimated date of appearance at your favorite book store is late autumn or min-December.