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,...
Aime Foisy shares his background in the military, having served in World War Two as an engineer and being captured as a Prisoner-of-War. Aurore was born in Canada as one of 14 children, working in the mills in Lewiston. Both share their history together, and all the...
The youngest of ten, Anthony Shostak talks about growing up here in Lewiston. He remembers going down to the library, and to the Bates Pond to go find crayfish and frogs. The alderman or the police would come by whenever they got too reckless. The summer after...
