Born on March 12,1922, Jack Kerouac is one of the most famous sons of Lowell, MA.  French-Canadian Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac, known to the world as Jack Kerouac, was a literary star of the Beat Generation.  His father was a successful businessman, but the death of Jack's nine-year-old older brother Gerard and the arrival of the Great Depression brought both emotional and financial upheaval to the family in the 1930s. 

Eventually, the Kerouac family found themselves in low-income housing.  Life in Lowell was not easy for Jack, and with his father in a downward spiral of drinking, gambling and depression, Jack often turned to books for escape. His passion for reading and learning encouraged him to begin writing and it allowed him the freedom to think.

Kerouac grew up in a Catholic household, and he attended elementary school at the St. Louis Parochial School.  Skipping grade six, he attended Bartlett Junior High School.  He continued his schooling through high school at Lowell High School where he was a star athlete.  A shy but popular boy, Jack and his friends enjoyed hanging out in Lowell's Kearney Square and shooting pool at the Pawtucketville Social Club.

Jack was a good student, despite skipping hours of school to visit the Lowell Public Library, now named Pollard Memorial Library.  He and his sister often went to the library where he favored the works of Shakespeare, Victor Hugo and William Penn.  In fact, Kerouac thanked the library for its varied collection in his work, Doctor Sax.

Kerouac often wrote of his life in Lowell, and stories included places that can still be seen when driving through Lowell. One of Kerouac's most famous works, On the Road, is a largely autobiographical stream of consciousness novel and is considered some of his best writing.  It was written on a roll of paper  nearly 120 feet long. This work was celebrated at a variety of events in Lowell in 2007, in honor of its 50th anniversary.

Following a lifetime of heavy drinking, Jack Kerouac died from complications of cirrhosis of the liver in October of 1969.  Kerouac was buried at the Edson Cemetery in Lowell. He has a simple burial plot along with a headstone bearing the quote, "He Honored Life." 

Jack Kerouac was awarded a Doctor of Letters degree posthumously from UMass Lowell on June 2, 2007. Each year, the city of Lowell honors Kerouac with the Lowell Celebrates Kerouac! Festival held the first weekend in October, as well as a program in the Spring near his birthday.

Jack Kerouac will always be known by the world as the King of the Beats, and he will always be a beloved son of Lowell, Massachusetts.