Lowell Hands

My grandmother Theresa worked in a textile mill in Lowell when she was young.

She did not talk about it like it was romantic. It was loud, hot in the summer, cold near the windows in winter, and hard on the hands. She used to rub lotion into her fingers at night and say she could still hear the machines after she got home.

Later she cleaned offices in Boston and helped raise five grandchildren. She saved newspaper clippings, birthday cards, and every school photo we ever gave her.

This place on the Massachusetts map is for the women who worked quietly and left more behind than they ever knew.