When I was in high school (Keith Academy, Lowell, MA., 1946-1949) I clerked after school in a Kennedy’s Butter and Egg Store, one of many such stores in a large New England chain. I don’t know if the store belonged to “those Kennedy’s” but that was it’s name. The store was on Central Street in downtown Lowell and did a crisp business every week as hundreds of people walked by and came in for butter cut from large tubs, eggs collected from baskets, bulk cheese of many kinds, fresh ground coffee (three choices), bulk tea, and a few shelves of tinned goods, crackers and cookies. Usually three of us were at work: the store manager, another full-time clerk and myself; an after school helper who stocked shelves, cleaned windows, swept floors and waited on customers.
In the fall and winter it got dark early and many’s the night I walked home in darkness and cold. I had this job to help out at home. At the end of the week I would turn my pay envelope over to my mother and I would keep a small amount for myself. An older sister did the same and eventually my younger brother would also fall into line. My father had disappeared years earlier and did not support his wife and five children so when we became of the working permit age, 14 it was, we got work permits and found jobs.
When the store closed at six in the evening the manager and the full-time clerk headed their ways and I went mine. I walked down Central Street past another ten or so stores and then turned left on Market Street. A long walk up this street past mills that still employed hundreds, across the canal and past the Lowell Boys Club and a series of Greek coffee shops and stores would take me to the entrance to the housing project where we lived. Shortly after turning onto Market Street I walked past the Lowell Police Station. It was a long red brick building, two stories high. On the ground level past the main entrance there was a series of cells. In the warm weather open windows afforded people passing by a glimpse of them.
On one early Autumn night as I walked on in the twilight I was passing the police station and I heard a commotion. At the end of the building a window was open for ventilation and I stopped to listen and look. I was a teenager, I was curious. Police were cutting a man down from the bars. He had hanged himself. A policeman saw me looking through the window and yelled at me to “Go on. Get out of here.” I did as I was told and hurried on home.
When I arrived home a neighbor lady was in our house talking with my mother. My sisters and brothers were there as well. I told them what I had seen at the police station and my story was dismissed as exaggeration. I was disappointed that no one believed me and felt deflated. I had seen an important thing and wanted to share it. We had supper and nothing more was said.
Later that evening, probably around nine, the neighbor who had been in my house came to our door and told my mother she had a phone call on the neighbor’s phone. We did not have phone in our house at the time. My mother went next door and when she returned she was obviously shaken. An aunt had called. The aunt’s brother, a veteran of the recently concluded World War II had committed suicide in the local jail a few hours earlier. He was a veteran seared by war who had a massive drinking problem and was known to the local police. They occasionally locked him up until he sobered and then they turned him loose. He was not a criminal they had to keep an eye on. He was just a man scarred by his war experiences and they tried to help him.
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