Pauline Turcotte grew up in Auburn where her family ran the Dennis Brickyard Company. Her grandfather started the company, which her three uncles and her father would also work. They even lived next to the company, building three homes right next to the brickyard to...
Roy and Mary Tassinari have been involved in the shoe industry for a very long time, even their parents worked in various shoe mills both in Maine and in Massachusetts.They share a lot about the process of shoemaking, going over everything from wooden heels, shoe...
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...
The owner of Pamco, Maurice “Moe” Cote worked at the shoe machine part facility with his father Paul Cote. Both of his parents worked in the shoe industry, his mom worked at one of the shoe factories as a stitcher and his father was a carpenter who worked...
Ray Croteau grew up in a very different Lewiston then today. Born in 1933, his parents worked through the Great Depression with his father as a post-man, the weekly check making sure they didn’t suffer. His mother worked in the Bates Mill from a young age,...