I have already sent the email below to a reporter for the Lowell Sun and I have directed the same question to a librarian at the Lowell City Library. No responses, yet.
As a former Lowell Sun newsboy from Centralville (Route 487), I have a question that you might be able to answer for me. It falls under the “human interest” category, which is one that you regularly handle in your on-line articles.
Essentially, what happened to most of the newspaper’s articles regarding the city of Lowell in 1946? The on-line source called NewspaperArchives is nearly empty of Lowell Sun articles for most of 1946, a crucial year in a memoir story, which I am writing about my youth in the city.
Do you know, perhaps, how I could obtain a digitized copy of an article that appeared in the Lowell Sun in January, February or early March of 1946?
Also, if you have a little time, please see below the related details and background information.
Thank you for any suggestions along this line.Paul E. Bolduc, LTI graduate, Class 1961, Physics and Mathematics
Background
It was during that time period – early 1946 – that my kindergarten playmate and friend, Jacqueline Deschenes, fell victim of an involuntary homicide when her mother, Beatrice Deschenes, failed to end her own life through a coal gas poisoning but, regrettably, instead, killed her two children, Jacqueline and Francois while they slept in their bedroom located near the kitchen’s gas stove.
Apropos of this tragic event, for several years now, I have been a member of a local, Albuquerque, memoir-writers group where I have shared many, many anecdotes about my growing-up years in Spindle City along the Merrimack from 1939 to 1961. Secretly, I have been planning to blend these personal memories regarding the city’s multi-cultural flavors found in foods, customs, languages and, also, neighborhoods like The Acre, Little Canada, Cabot and Moody Streets, the Highlands and Centralville, etc. into a readable tome of interesting, local history.
Naturally, the influence of the many textile mills played a central role on the socioeconomic factors that shaped the city, both financially and psychologically. The hopes, dreams and attitudes of the working class operatives (Greek, Irish, Franco-American, Polish, etc.) were reflected in their purchases made at Pollard’s, the Bon Marche and the Giant Store.