Jerry Roussaeu was born in Auburn in 1930 to a French Canadian family. After receiving his Social Security card when he was thirteen, he began working in the brickyard to contribute to his family. He discusses what daily life was like growing up in the 1930s and 40s...
Laurette Boulay was born in Lewiston in 1920, and she and her family returned to Canada soon after. When she was just shy of 16 years old, Boulay returned to Lewiston on her own to work and live with her aunt and uncle. From when she was 18 to in her early fifties,...
When she was eleven years old, Emma Pelletier’s family left their home in St. Ludger, Canada for Lewiston. She began working in Bates Mill as a battery hand as soon as she was big enough to work, eventually becoming a room girl. Pelletier describes her roles at the...
Born about six months before Pearl Harbor in 1941, Jack Tetrault grew up in the period right at the start and after World War Two. He grew up in Auburn, recalling a lot of the things that they used to do for fun back then before car traffic picked up like riding down...
Moving as a family across Maine, Mary Jane Gervais and her family were looking for work from Houlton down through Biddeford, eventually setting in Lewiston at the age of 12. She had started working at the Bates mill at the age of 16, and has been working on-and-off at...
