St. Joseph’s High School: Classrooms to Bedrooms in the City of Lowell, MA

Emily Weitzman Rosenbaum, Coalition for a Better Acre

“‘There’s a lot to like about Lowell!’ as the saying goes.  For one thing, the Acre neighborhood in Lowell is a place that launched my family. Would you have guessed that a country girl – I grew up across from a dairy farm in Western Connecticut – would have roots in the great gateway city of Lowell?  My father’s father, Shmuel, who in America became Sam, brought his young family to Lowell in the 1930’s.   He managed the Enterprise Department store downtown.  He always boasted when I was a kid about how he could add up a row of numbers in his head.  He spoke Russian, Yiddish and Polish and Hebrew.  English was his fifth language.  He studied Torah and Talmud in the old country and had a complete Jewish education. He came to America by himself at age 17 and never went to school in America, at least not the formal kind, but he was schooled in Lowell. 

“My dad was born in the St. Joseph’s hospital, just a stone’s throw from my office at CBA and St. Joseph’s High School.  Sam moved when the company asked him to and managed other Enterprise stores and was eventually able to open his own store, Brenner’s clothing in Wakefield center. When I think of Lowell and the Acre neighborhood and St. Joseph’s, if I close my eyes and imagine, I can hear the raucous noise of kids playing in the school yard and running through the halls.  I think of all those who came to Lowell and built the city- the Irish, French Canadians, Greeks, Portuguese, Poles, and Eastern European Jews.  They built great institutions –St. Joseph’s High School among them – and my family was there!  

“I look forward to when the halls of the St. Joseph’s High School will be filled again with raucous noise and laughter- this time family noise and wonderful cooking smells of Asian, Latino, African and American cuisines.  Who knows where those children will be 70 odd years from now- perhaps in Lowell, or maybe settled down with their families in Western Connecticut.  With all good fortune, St. Joseph’s will be home to may more generations of young ones from many parts of the world destined for many great things.”

- Emily Weitzman Rosenbaum is the Coalition for a Better Acre’s Executive Director