LEWISTON – It was a happy celebration of a proud heritage Sunday afternoon as 500 former millworkers filled space once used for textile-making at the Bates Mill.

A millworkers’ reunion sponsored by Museum L-A brought them together.

They were people who had spent a large part of the past half century in the noisy, hot and lint-filled atmosphere of Lewiston’s textile mills, but if those were difficult times, you wouldn’t know it from the laughter and joyous tears the festivities evoked.

Rachel Desgroseilliers, executive director of Museum L-A, told the former mill workers, “You wove the fabrics of the mills, and then you went home to weave the fabrics of our lives and our community.”

Desgroseilliers and Elliott Epstein, founder and president of Museum L-A, which is located in the Bates Mill, described efforts to establish the museum over the past few years.

Desgroseilliers described her memories of meeting her father, Cyrille Baillargeon, as he got off the bus after each day’s work.

“I always wondered why he had lint in his nose, his mouth, his ears – even his belly button,” she said. “I never understood it until I came to visit him before he retired. When I walked in here and saw what he was doing, that man stood tall in my thinking.”

Her father, whose hearing had been damaged by years of work in the noisy mill, stood to acknowledge applause from the audience.

Those memories are part of the inspiration for a new museum fund-raising program that Desgroseilliers announced Sunday. She said quilts of honor will be made from actual fabric samples. The swatches of fabric will be sold in memory of specific former employees, like her father, and the resulting quilts will be hung in the museum.

“A lot of stories were told today,” said Desgroseilliers. “One gentleman talked with me about his sports years here at Bates,” she said. “You don’t tend to think of sports with Bates. You think of weavers.”

Before the speeches began, Fernande Labbe of Lewiston scanned dozens of photos on a wall of memories, picking out many familiar scenes.

“I worked here only six weeks,” he said, “but I worked at the Hill Mill for eight years. My father worked here 30 years.”

Labbe said his mother-in-law, Theresa Provencher, also worked at the Hill Mill for 30 years. They were both in the spinning department and they were both at the mill workers’ reunion Sunday to share memories with old friends.

“When I came in here I was only 15 years old,” Labbe recalled, admitting that he faked his age. “My father was a worker in the card room then,” he said.

“It all brings tears to my eyes,” said 91-one-year-old Dorothy Bolduc of Lewiston as she visited with friends and reminisced about the past. It was her husband, Simeon Bolduc, now deceased, who began working at the mill in 1946 when they were starting a family in Lewiston.

Theresa Morin of Lewiston, barely 5-feet tall, stood beside a massive piece of spinning machinery now on display in Museum L-A. It had been two decades since she had held the 8-inch-tall spools of thread that she once had placed time after time on the machine, but she could still show how it fit and how she had performed her job.

“I started in 1953 at the Hill Mill,” she said, “and then when the Hill Mill closed I moved over here to the Bates. I was here until 1984.”

Three women, who now reside at the Barker Mill in Auburn, were sharing a table. In their working days, they had jobs at three different Lewiston mills.

Julianne Poulin was employed at the Androscoggin Mill “so many years ago that everyone I knew then is dead now.”

Virginia L’Heureux, who was celebrating her birthday at the reunion, had worked at the Bates Mill from 1966 to 1973.

Cecile Burgoyne worked as a doffer replacing empty bobbins with full ones in the spinning room of the Hill Mill more than 50 years ago. She said she went into the service, came back and worked at the mill until 1955.

“I met quite a few people today that I know, and I never knew they had worked at the mill,” Burgoyne said.

Tours of Museum L-A and its exhibits were held throughout the afternoon. Architectural photos by Robert Darby were on display, as well as many old pictures and newspaper articles.

The audience also heard remarks by several local businessmen whose establishments were important places in the days when Lewiston’s mills operated. They were Jim Simones of Simones Hot Dog Stand, Phil St. Pierre, long-time owner of Victor News, Morris Silverman of Louis Clothing, and Phil Moreau of Rainbow Credit Union.

The Rev. Michael Seavey of St. Joseph’s Church offered a prayer.

Emile Clavet was master of ceremonies.

Lewiston Mayor Lionel Guay and Auburn Mayor Normand Guay presented a joint proclamation in honor of the millworkers.

An extensive menu of traditional foods and desserts was prepared and presented by the Lewiston Regional Technical Culinary Arts Program under the direction of Dan Caron.

Music was provided by Greg Boardman and the Young Fiddlers and by Lorraine and Gerry, accordion and guitar.