Richard Turcotte (1914-2001) was born in Lewiston to parents who had recently immigrated from Canada.

Turcotte's mother, Phillipine Lacroix Turcotte, died when he was three. His father, Eugene Turcotte, died when Richard was 11. He lived with a neighbor for a while and was sent to Pownal State School in 1925. The school, which later became the Pineland Center, had been known until 1925 as the Maine School for the Feeble-Minded.

Turcotte left the school in the 1950s and moved to Lewiston, where he worked at Maine General Hospital and St. Mary's Hospital.