This audio exhibit is the culmination of a three week intensive at Bates College in May 2026. Students in the Short Term course “Purposeful Work: Community-Engaged Audio Storytelling” worked with instructor Galen Koch and archivist Anna Faherty at the Franco-American Collection to create this listening event for the Lewiston-Auburn community. In this course, students learned to conduct oral history life interviews, and use those interviews to create a comprehensive, curated listening event. They worked individually and as a team to write and edit the audio below. 

Student interviewers and editors include: Aidan Buck, Elianna Umana Kimura, and Bradley Wentworth. Special thanks to Anna Faherty at the Franco-American Collection and Marianne Cowen at Bates College. This project would not have been possible without our interviewees: Paula Currie Raymond, Jewel Currie, Doris Belisle Bonneau, Celia McGuckian, Gerard “Gerry” Raymond, Cecile Desjardins Thornton, and Murielle Bolduc Parks.