Three generations of Phil Nadeau’s family attended Saint Dominic Academy’s high school. After his grandparents immigrated to Lewiston from the province of Quebec in Canada, they sent his father to the school, where he was a member of the second graduating class.

In the early decades the private school was in downtown Lewiston in Bartlett and Blake streets, he said. It served many of the city’s French Canadian families who settled in multifamily homes in the downtown area.

Nadeau, who was deputy city administrator in Lewiston from 1999-2017, said sending students to Saint Dominic Academy was convenient for those Franco families and parents who often lived, worked and owned businesses in that close-knit neighborhood.

At one time, parochial schools were very popular and tuition was more affordable, he said. It even went so far as to impact the city’s property taxes, helping to keep them down because there were not as many children attending the city’s public schools.

When Nadeau started attending the high school in the early 1960s, it became more diversified as families started moving out of the downtown and into single-family homes, he said.

Moving out of the downtown area was bittersweet, Nadeau said, but he understood the need because there was not a lot of space for physical activities.

When he first heard Friday that the high school was shutting down this spring, he said he was shocked. He has fond memories of it and still talks to friends he made when he was there, he said.

“It was a wonderful period of my life no doubt about it,” he said.

Nadeau said he was aware attendance at private Catholic schools was declining over the years, but still surprised by the news.

In the 1950s there were eight parochial schools in Lewiston and Auburn, most of them in Lewiston, with an enrollment of 12,584 students, he said. He believes Saint Dominic is the last one standing.

The expected closing of the high school is a loss for both cities, he said. Having a variety of schools in a community offers more diversity and he sees this as the “end of an era” for parochial schools in the two cities.

“I think, having that kind of institution in your community is what helps you become more complete, offer more opportunities to … the local population. But it certainly marks the end of an era in terms of parochial education,” he said.

That said, Nadeau has hope something good can come out of this situation: perhaps there will be new opportunities available to the community if the high school is repurposed.

“I feel badly for the people that are being impacted by this stuff,” he said. “But at the same time I also believe in the resilience of the city. I’ve seen it, you know. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen what happened to those textile mills and shoe factories, and how we were able to come up with a plan to repurpose them.

“And some of it has been extremely successful,” he said. “And I have faith in the city, and the elected officials, and the administration to find a new way and a new path. So I’m not at a loss, you know. I haven’t lost hope.”