LEWISTON — It began with a batch of cookies.

Handing out chocolate chip-oatmeal cookies on a winter day to crews digging sewer lines has evolved into an unusual relationship between a grandmother and city workers.

Jeanne Raymond, 75, is the self-proclaimed den mother of the Lewiston Public Works Department. Like a proud mom, she dotes on the workers.

When the plow truck rumbles down her lane, Raymond runs out to greet the driver, whom she knows by name, with cookies. During snowstorms, crews work 12-hour shifts and need calories, Raymond said.

When public Works staff hold quarterly breakfasts, Raymond’s there, serving her homemade applesauce.

She’s there for the summer barbecues, the Christmas luncheons. “They like my chili,” she said.

One Father’s Day, crews had to repair a downtown sink hole. She felt bad that they had to work on a Sunday and on Father’s Day. “It was hotter than the blazes,” Raymond said. “I brought them chocolate cake.”

Raymond is on the mailing list for the Public Works newsletters. The employee of the month can count on getting a congratulations note from her.

The workers are heroes and deserve thanks, she said.

“The police, the firemen are wonderful, but they can’t get to you without these guys,” she said. “Public Works plowing keeps the roads in good shape.” Not enough people realize the the service they perform, she said. “I just think they’re heroes.”

Public Works Director David Jones said his department adores her.

“It’s nice having her around. She’s like a cheerleader for us,” Jones said. During the breakfasts and luncheons, “she’s always there for our crews. She’s a big morale booster.”

Her unofficial role of den mother began 10 years ago when crews were in her No Name Pond neighborhood installing sewer lines. Without new sewer lines, residents may have had to move, considering how close the homes were to the pond, Raymond said.

She looked out the window and thought, “Oh, they’re saving my home and the weather’s so awful.” She baked cookies and took them out to the workers. They were puzzled, she recalled. “They said, ‘You made these for us? Why?’ I told them, ‘Look what you’re doing. You need calories.’”

Public Works crews were in her neighborhood for much of that winter. She fed them often: cookies, muffins, soup. Months later, she was house-bound, recovering from surgery. Workers knocked on her door with a fruit basket.

Raymond has a Lewiston Public Works scrapbook on her living-room coffee table. Every newspaper article with anything about Public Works — from snowstorms to spring floods — is in there.

So are stories about individual workers, like when Normand Roy returned from duty in Iraq. And features, such as Public Works adopting a one-eyed cat. Also in there is her prized possession, a 70th birthday card signed by dozens of Public Works staffers. That year, they presented her with a beautiful birthday cake, she said.

She takes her scrapbook to the annual barbecues. The first year City Administrator Ed Barrett attended, she showed him her scrapbook and bragged about city workers.

“I said, ‘Mr. Barrett, I want you to look at this so you can see what our guys can do and are doing.’ He was impressed.”

Raymond, a retired nurse and a widow, said being the Public Works den mother has brought her joy.

One Valentine’s Day, she had Scouts make cards for the crews. Not long after that, she greeted a worker in a truck. She knocked on his window and said, ‘You don’t know who I am, but I’m your den mother at Public Works.’ He said, ‘I know who you are,’” and thanked her for the Valentine’s Day card. He told her it was the first time he had gotten a Valentine’s Day card, and it meant a lot.

“That’s powerful stuff,” she said. “You don’t know how a little thing you do can mean a lot to somebody else.”

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