LEWISTON – The retired mill workers were a little shy when they walked by the display for Museum L-A at the Festival de Joie on Friday.

On Saturday, they started warming up. By Sunday, the retirees were talking and all wanted to be a part of the Millworker’s Reunion in October.

“They can’t get over that the community is bothering about them,” said Museum Director Rachel DesGrosseilliers.

“They totally built this community,” she said.

There will be tours and exhibits of Museum L-A. The museum will serve a French-Canadian meal, and entertainers will perform.

One of the main highlights will be the recording of oral and video histories.

“Once you guys go, the history is gone,” DesGrosseilliers said as she encouraged one retiree to attend the reunion.

“We’ve got to do something to save it now,” she added.

It didn’t take much convincing to get the worker to sign up.

Once the retirees started telling each other about the reunion over food and music on Saturday evening, word spread like wildfire.

“They’re all thrilled,” DesGrosseilliers said.

One such retiree is Emile Frenchette. He worked at the Bates Mill for 25 years.

Frenchette reserved his spot on Saturday. He returned to the festival on Sunday with copies of photographs that he is donating to the museum’s collection.

One was a 1969 picture from a retirement party. As he listed off the names of everyone in the photograph, his face beamed.

“We all chipped in,” he said, to pay for the party for one of their fellow weave room No. 5 supervisors.

The workers also occasionally took time off to play hockey. He donated a 1932 photograph of his hockey team, the original Lewiston Derby.

The competition was fierce.

“Whenever we had good players, St. Dom’s and the Cyclones would come over and take them,” he said. St. Dom’s would lure the best by feeding them hot dogs and buying them hockey sticks.

“Sometimes it got a little out of hand, too,” he said. After defeating the Flying Frenchmen and the Mohawks, one championship game against the Maple Leafs was played with a half-inch of water on the ice. Derby won.

DesGrosseilliers encouraged other retirees to bring in their old souvenirs. One man dropped off a national championship hockey jacket.

“Don’t throw anything away about the mills,” she told one woman, as she effortlessly switched between the French and English languages.

It helps that his wife is able to speak French, Harvey said. “It makes these people relax a lot,” he said.

Harvey is working on an exhibit about local brick making. The industry was big in the area. He doesn’t want the brick workers to be forgotten.

Festival chairman and Lewiston Mayor Lionel Guay Jr. said the goal of the entire festival is to preserve local heritage, too. The success of the festival was an encouraging sign that Franco life is still strong.

The weekend was busy. “It’s probably the best-attended Saturday night we’ve ever had,” Guay said.

People enjoyed themselves, he said. This year’s weather was sunny. The entertainers were the best Guay’s seen. And the food was great.

There will not be exact numbers for crowd sizes and meals prepared until later in the week. But organizers guess that volunteers cooked 12,000 crepes one at a time.

“It’s going to be a lot of gallons,” Guay said, when the final amount of crepe batter is tallied up.