AUBURN — Fourteen years ago, Karen Bilodeau was an unusual student at Bates College. She was 33 years old and often took her preschooler, Emma, with her to classes or to meetings with professors.

After graduating from the Lewiston college, Bilodeau went to law school. She’s been a lawyer for nine years.

All that made an impression on Emma, a senior at Edward Little High School. With a goal of becoming a doctor helping underprivileged children, this fall she’ll go to college on the campus she walked as a child.

Emma went to Bates so often as a preschooler, “I remember thinking that all parents went to college when they had kids,” she said. “I grew up wondering why my friends’ parents didn’t go to college. Once I said to my dad, ‘Why aren’t you going to school?’”

As the Sun Journal reported in a 2000 story, Karen Bilodeau was married, a mother and wife who thought her path in life was set. Interested in law and working for the local District Attorney’s Office, she regretted she didn’t go to college. She thought it was too late.

“My husband, Marcel, was one of the primary motivators pushing me,” Karen said. “He realized before I did I had the potential. It didn’t dawn on me I would go to law school.”

With her husband’s encouragement, she got into Bates. Between the ages of 3 and 6, Emma remembers going to professor Emily Kane’s sociology classes. “I remember her doing a lot of projects. Kane examined gender equality in ‘The Little House on the Prairie.’ I remember that being fascinating,” Emma said.

When Karen attended law school, her husband and daughter made sure she could study. “Marcel always picked up the ball,” making dinner and taking care of Emma. The family was committed to Karen’s education, she said.

As a little girl, Emma had a mature understanding she needed to be quiet when her mother studied. “I made her lunches and would bring them up,” Emma said. When her mother prepared for a mock trial, “I would read the lines. I would pretend I was a witness or a cop.”

The rehearsal helped, Karen said. “Because when she wouldn’t understand the question, I’d rephrase the question. By the time I went in to do prep trial, I had done it often.”

Not long after Karen passed the bar and got a job with McTeague Higbee in Topsham, her husband’s job was eliminated. Her husband became a stay-at-home dad. “It was perfect,” Karen said.

Four years ago the family adopted an infant girl, Audrey. The family so enjoyed her that Marcel suggested they adopt another. Two years ago Chase, then a 2-day-old boy, came into their lives.

When it was time for Emma’s college search, she longed to go out of state. During an overnight visit to Oberlin in Ohio, she said she changed her mind, preferring to be near her younger siblings and longing for Bates.

At age 17, like she did at age 4, Emma sat in on Professor Kane’s sociology class. “It was very much like, ‘This is what I want to be doing the next four years,’” she said.

Emma plans to study sociology and African-American studies. Her adopted siblings are African-American. She also plans to take science classes to help her continue to medical school.

“I really want to help underprivileged kids as a pediatrician or surgeon” in Haiti or Africa, she said.

From her mother, she said she’s learned she can do anything.

“It’s pretty amazing to see someone who started as a mother reach being a lawyer and do what she wanted to do,” Emma said.

As her daughter starts college, Karen will be the one watching, encouraging.

“She can do anything,” her mother said. “It’s going to be wonderful to watch her grow into Emma.”

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To read the 2000 Sun Journal story of Karen Bilodeau, go to:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1914&dat=20000531&id=nJ80AAAAIBAJ&sjid=WGoFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4922,6753554