By Daniel Hartill,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Amid the cool granite and towering spires of Saints Peter and Paul Church, Diane Williams feels closer to her family.

Her father, Maurice Malo, was a mason who helped construct the steeples. Three uncles worked there, too. And her grandfather, Louis – her pepere – was the contractor who built the massive church.

“You feel attached in a special way,” said Williams, 57.

As a girl, she heard stories about the construction of Saints Peter and Paul, which is set to be inaugurated May 22 as a basilica.

“I know that my family would be very pleased,” Williams said of the honor. “There’s also sadness that they won’t be here.”

The imposing structure was built at the height of the Great Depression.

A single-story, lower church had already been built on Ash Street in 1906. However, by the early 1930s, the downtown parish had outgrown the building. So in 1934, church leaders requested bids for a new church, designed by Boston architect T.G. O’Connell. And Malo, with a bid of $361,510, won the job.

It wasn’t his first.

“These kinds of buildings were my grandfather’s specialty,” said Williams, who spread artifacts of the family business across her kitchen table.

“I’m trying to make a scrapbook of all they did,” she said. She worries it may be forgotten.

Born in St. Damase, Quebec, Louis Malo came to Lewiston as a boy. After attending a church school, he went to work in the mills as an adolescent. At 14, he began learning carpentry and masonry.

By 1912, at the age of 40, he began Louis P. Malo & Sons. For the next 24 years, the company built several Lewiston landmarks. Among them were the Knights of Columbus Building on Park Street, Martel School on Lisbon Street and St. Mary’s Church on Cedar Street.

The company also built churches in Augusta and Fort Fairfield and schools in Auburn, Rumford and Greene.

Despite all the work, Saints Peter and Paul was Malo’s most prominent work.

According to a church booklet published in 1996, construction on the upper church began in May 1934 and ended two years later.

Williams’ father, Maurice Malo, would tell stories of working on the steeples. “It never bothered him to be up high like that,” she said.

Years later, he would work on the construction of Holy Family Church on Sabattus Street. Diane attended the church school next door. She’d look out the window and see her dad walking the scaffolding.

He would saunter across the narrow pathways in the air as if they were sidewalks, she said. And he wasn’t alone.

Each project drew hundreds of craftsmen. Each church was a community effort.

To Williams, Saints Peter and Paul became a symbol for the area’s Franco-American population. That her family helped build it is a profound source of pride.

Not everyone believes her, though.

Years ago, she was attending a Mass at the the church when two people approached her. They were visiting from Paris and remarked at Saints Peter and Paul’s similarity to churches at home in France.

When they casually asked Williams, who happened to be sitting nearby, if she knew any of the Lewiston church’s history, she told them that her grandfather led its construction.

The visitors just rolled their eyes.

“I really don’t think they believed me,” Williams said, laughing gently. “They didn’t believe me at all.”