Stella Sampas

As a teenager in Lowell, Jack Kerouac formed a close friendship with a sensitive Greek boy named Sammy Sampas, who would die heroically in World War II (and who was immortalized as Alexander in Kerouac's first novel, 'The Town and the City.')

Decades later, a famous and alcoholic Kerouac returned to Lowell to marry Sammy's sister Stella, a matronly older woman. He and Stella do not appear to have been romantically linked when they were young. This was Jack's third marriage, and the only one that lasted more than a few months. He and Stella lived with Jack's mother in Lowell, St. Petersburg, Florida, and Northport, Long Island. She was with him on the morning of his death in 1969.

The large Sampas family is still very visible around Lowell, Massachusetts.

Literary Kicks
by Levi Asher