Emerson Clough interviewed by Richard Ade - April 12, 2001

• Clough, Emerson, 1917-2013

Richard Ade Interviews

PLEASE STATE YOUR FULL NAME.

Emerson Clough

WHAT YEAR WERE YOU BORN?

1917

HOW MANY PEOPLE WERE IN YOUR FAMILY?

Eight.

WHAT WAS YOUR FATHER’S OCCUPATION?

Laborer. He worked around here. He had a little farm and worked in the woods a lot, logging, for different companies.

HOW ABOUT YOUR MOTHER?

She was a practical nurse at that time. Course they didn’t have RN’s or things in those days but she used to go work with the local doctors in town if they went out to deliver a baby, she’d go with them to help out and clean up and help the women. She also worked at the Bethel Inn. She did pastry cooking there for quite a number of years. She worked in the laundry. We lived out there on the Somber Road there, about two miles. Everything that had to be done, we had to walk back and forth into town. We had no automobile. We had the horse and wagon. Outside of that. Then my folks ran the place outside of Somber Pond, there, for quite a number of years. They lost everything they owned, house, land. Money they had borrowed they couldn’t pay it back.

I went to school to the 7th grade then I quit. Went to work. I worked on Gould Academy when I was sixteen years old, I remember, wheeling crushed drop cuttings, all summer long. I probably weighted 110 to 115 pounds soaking wet. And, when the wheelbarrow was loaded, it weighed twice as much as I did. Then, I went in the army. I worked on a farm in Meriden, New Hampshire. My brother-in-law went over there to run the farm so I went with him and worked there for a year. Then I went to work for Davis Lumber company up in New Hampshire and Springfield, Vermont. Then, I went in the army. I had signed up for the draft. I signed up for a year and I got four and half years. I landed in Casablanca, went through Africa and over to Sicily. We took that little Island . Then we went to …June the 12th, six days after the initial invasion, I went into France. Then it was the end of the war. I got discharged. I had a tractor, truck and planted about four or five acres of strawberries. I worked in the woods off and on in different places. Then, I retired from anything.

WHAT WAS LIFE LIKE AT HOME WHEN YOU WERE A CHILD?

Well, we had enough to eat most of the time. Course, we’re talking country. It’s not like it is today where you can run out to the store and get a can of this or that. We only went to the store once or twice a week. We didn’t have much money. The money didn’t come like it does today. Cripe, the kids today have more money today than I ever had when I was growing up as a kid. But, my father worked for Joe Jepsoms father down here …one summer, peeling hardwood. I remember when I was a kid, maybe nine or ten years old, going to work with him peeling wood. They cut the trees down and I would help peel them. Course, my father ran that bait and beach out there. He had a boat, people to rent and stuff like that. I could go fishing whenever I wanted to because I had a boat right there.

WHAT DO YOU REMBMER ABOUT YOUR GRANDPARENTS?

Well, on my father’s side, they were dead before I was old enough to know them. On my mother’s side, I knew my grandmother a bit but I was probably eight years old when they died. I don’t remember too much about them. They lived over on the town line on Waterford and Moulton…right on the town line. They are buried in the cemetery out in Waterford there. I can’t tell you much more about them. I had an aunt who died giving birth to a child when she was 25 years old. My mother’s sister.

WHAT WERE YOUR EARLIEST MEMORIES?

Well, not too much of anything, really. We lived out there. If we wanted to skiing, we didn’t have skis back then, you’d take the barrel stems out and put straps on them and put your feet in them and those were skis. We had a little hill there, in back of where we lived and we were always up there playing on that hill…sledding and barrel skiing. If you had a pair of skis you had to have money…you’d have to go down to the place where they made skis or something…so you could buy them. There were never any in the stores for sale up here. Now, you can buy them most anywhere. I did have a pony when I was a kid. I was probably 10 or 11 years old. A little Shetland pony. My father got it for me. He got away from me one night and took off down the road just about dark and a car was coming around the corner with headlights on and he ran right into the car and broke his neck. We had to haul him away and bury him. My sister used to live near that big hill over there. We used to sled down that hill and everybody couldn’t get running by with their automobile because it was so thick…they wouldn’t let us on there anymore. They’d have the Sheriff come up and stand there and watch us and make sure we didn’t slide down the hill.

WHAT WERE SOME OF YOUR MOST IMPORTANT EARLY INFLUENCES?

I don’t know….back in them days, course they used to haul wood with horses and we’d help them out with the mill work here. Kids were always telling them we wanted to get a job working with the wood and all they would do was give us 10 cents a cord. We had to make sure they would end up in the river and float. We couldn’t do that….all they wanted to do was give us ten cents a cord. I used to work for a man right down here on the hill there and he had a herd of cattle…I used to help him hay in the summer time. Didn’t get very big money….I stay home now. I’m retired and I don’t do much of anything.

WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER ABOUT SCHOOL?

Well, I had to walk from the Somber Road, about three miles, to school. When I quit school, the teacher there, she didn’t like me very well or something or other. We had several run ins. I don’t know what I was doing…I thought I was studying my spelling, but she didn’t think I was so she hit me side the head with the book. Took my book away from me and told me to go home. The principal was a man teacher…he took me outside and he was going to give me a licking with a piece of garden hose. I took the hose away from him and chased him back up the stairs. Well, that ended that. There were a few things that happened after that before I quit school. I was thinking, if I was going to be in trouble all the time, I might as well quit. When I went in the army in 1942…let’s see…I put in four and half years…that was a long time from when I got in til when I got out. I only got home a couple of times during that time. I was in North Carolina once…you only get 10 day furlow…that doesn’t give you much time to get home. Now, they give you a 30 day furlow and get paid for it too. Back in those days, you didn’t get paid for it. Had to save up for it…Course, you only got $21.00 per month. My uniform and my laundry and everything all furnished. But, that ain’t very much money to try to save up some, if you think of it. I took most it for cigarettes. I finally quit smoking cigarettes for a while…then I took it up again. Couldn’t leave them alone.

WHAT WERE SOME OF YOUR WORST WORK EXPERIENCES?

Well, I had a tree fall on me once in the wintertime. I was working with another fellow in the woods and we went to saw these yellow birch after we notched it…I looked up and I thought the tree was going right where it was supposed to, but it came right down on me and knocked me down and buried me in the snow….I got out. I wasn’t hurt or nothing…but it could have splattered me. I was just lucky, that’s all. But I’ve got a lot of experiences in the army that…where I could have got killed pretty easy. When we were getting ready to go to Sicily, there was this bridge on the back side…we didn’t want to go down the front side because we were afraid the German submarines would come in and send torpedos up there so, we were on the back side. So these planes came over one night…there were about sixteen of them… German bombers…one of them came in low and right over our area and came back…and before we could shoot it down he dropped a load of bombs…they were going off all around us. I put my rear end in gear and I took off down the road. I went quite a ways down the road…got down beside a truck. Sat down behind the wheel until it was all over with. Then, I went back to check on my troop and I thought they would all be dead. It never hurt a one of them…never even got a scratch. The next time you know, it could have gotten all of them killed.

WHAT DID YOU LIKE THE MOST ABOUT GROWING UP?

Well, I could go fishing whenever I wanted…I could go hunting after I got old enough to carry a gun. My father and mother…I like listening to them telling their stories. I’ve got several pictures from home. My wife was quite a good hunter. She shot quite a few deer…shot a couple of bears…done better than I did. I never shot a bear in my life.

WHAT DID YOU LIKE THE LEAST ABOUT GROWING UP?

Oh, I don’t know what to tell you, really.

WHAT U.S. PRESIDENT DID YOU LIKE BEST?

F.D.R.

WHY?

He did a lot for this country during hard times. He started the job…when we young fellows needed to get a job and work…he started a lot of them. He’s the one, when we went overseas, he was still president then. I see him in Boston when they had a meeting there. My whole division was there. They came out and talked to us..both of them did. I had a camera but I didn’t take any pictures. They wouldn’t let us take any pictures.

WHO WAS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE PRESIDENT?

Oh, I didn’t care for Clinton at all. Never did. I’m a democrat. I was. I didn’t like him when they put him in. I didn’t figure he was going to do much for us. But, I guess some things he did and some he didn’t. Everybody tells about that they didn’t think that Bush had done very much. But, I think he did pretty good with this plane accident in China, there.

HOW DID YOU MEET YOUR WIFE?

When I came home from the service, she and my niece were at my mother’s house. We talked and then we went out and had a good time together. We kept it going and then we got married.

WHERE DID YOU LIVE AFTER YOU GOT MARRIED?

West Bethel. I bought a house and that’s where I live today. I’ve dressed it all up and done a lot of work to it.

WHAT IS YOUR WIFE’S OCCUPATION?

She went to school to be a hairdresser. She worked at that time right at home. She used to cut hair right at home. She made more money working right at home. There weren’t no barber around. She cut men’s hair and women’s hair. There was always somebody there for a haircut. She’s cut my hair all my life. She don’t do a very good job all the time when she cuts it….

WHAT ARE YOUR HOBBIES?

Fishing. Then I took up fly tying and then I took up wrapping fish poles. Putting new binders and new guides on and wrapping in them…I’ve replaced peoples fishing poles a few times, you know, those people who shut them in the car door or whatever…I haven’t done one for quite a while. There isn’t much money in it and people don’t want to pay to have them repaired. They think its’ cheaper to buy a new rod than to have it fixed. But, they cost quite a lot to repair them and it’s time consuming.

DO YOU HAVE ANY CHILDREN?

I have three girls and a boy.

WHAT ARE THEY LIKE?

Well, my boy lives down …he works for Cronin Construction out of Portland. My oldest daughter is the post master down in Cornish. My youngest daughter was working in the hospital..she quit…now she’s working for some doctor up there in the office as a bookkeeper and receptionist. My middle daughter…she has her owned stained glass shop down there in Harrison…down Route 5. She makes the lampshades and stuff…she remembers every one of them she makes…they are collectors items….She’s been at it quite a while. She’s made over 150 of them. I took a fellow up there once and pointed out one to him and told him I liked that one an awful lot. Well, she didn’t say much at the time. Come Christmas time, she said, Dad, I got you a Christmas gift….and she set that lamp shade on the table. I heard you tell somebody you like that one the best and so she said you get it for Christmas. A woman showed her a picture of a ranch she was building out in one of the western states …she wanted a lamp and she wanted a window. She gave her the dimensions of the window. She sent her a copy of the color of the glass and what she could make and so the woman ordered them. She probably got a couple thousand dollars between the window and the lamp shade. The shades are about $700 to $800 per shade. A lot of work in them. You know those wings on the Harley Davidson motor cycles? The way their made. She can’t advertise making that because they could tax her. But, she made one for a guy…for about $800 dollars. He was tickled to death with it.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE BEST ABOUT BETHEL?

Well, sometimes I think places are good and sometimes I don’t. But, that’s the way it’s always been. Well, I grew up here as a kid and that old train station down there where trains would come in. We’d always go down…kids…we’d go down to the station and watch the train come in and watch to see who was coming in. I remember when the Bethel Inn used to have sleighs with horses…double seated sleighs and meet the train in the winter time and pick up the people staying at the inn. In the spring of the year they’d have to take horses and dump carts and go up the street to clean up the horse manure and stuff. Over the winter they never cleaned it up….then they would clean it up in the spring. People who had gardens they’d take it and wheel it into their gardens. The old fire station was always right over there where it is now. They’re talking about moving it somwhere else…a bigger one, but they ain’t got the room there that they ought to have.

WHAT ARE THE DISADVANTAGES OF LIVING IN BETHEL?

Well, I don’ know if there is any. If you want to work, you can always find something to do. They may not pay the best but you can always find something to do. Course, here, there used to be about five or six mills around here. Now what do you have…one or two and that’s it. Back when I was a kid it was all lumber mills…some of them burnt, some of them went out of business. You could always get a job at one of those mills doing something if you wanted to work. Sometimes, I didn’t want to work..I wanted to live off the land or something….My father used to work in mills down there in the winter time for a dollar a day. He’d walk back and forth to work. He used to work at 7:00 til noon time…You didn’t have a coffee bread at 9:00. If you were going to earn that dollar you had to work right through til noon time and then til four in the after noon. Then, he’d have to walk home.

WHO WAS THE MOST UNFORGETTABLE CHARACTER THAT YOU EVER MET?

Well, Bonnie and Clyde…that was a big thing. The famous bank robbers going around because nobody knew where they were during all this time. Back in them days, we all had little radios. We just would listen to the news and hear them talk about it. Around here everybody was pretty calm and quiet when I was a kid. Nobody bothered anybody. When I would start logging, I could leave tool, chains and stuff out and nobody would bother it. Today, you couldn’t leave nothing out. It would all be gone.

I’ve got pictures taken when my father worked way up Sunday River when he was a young fellow when he worked up there on a logging job. I remembered him telling me that he was 18 years old and they were cutting for the lake….he worked with the survey crew up there.

WHAT DO YOU CONSIDER SOME OF YOUR MOST IMPORTANT DECISIONS?

Oh, Well, I guess one of them was when I bought my house. I didn’t have much money then to pay for it. I bought it for $1000.00. Between what my wife had earned and saved and what I had we had about a thousand dollars and we put it to the house. We’ve done a lot of work to it…we’ve torn some of it down…I bought a new tractor once. In fact, I bought two of them. The first one I bought I paid $10,924 for it. I went three years later and bought another one. I paid $13,000 for that one. I didn’t have a blade runner…just a tractor. That was quite a lot of money. My payment on the first one was something like $240 per month. I had to keep working to keep making those kind of payments. I think the other one was a bit more than that.

WHAT INFLUENCED YOUR LIFE THE MOST?

Oh, I don’t know. I had so many things.

WHAT ADVICE DO YOU THINK IS IMPORTANT TO GIVE TO YOUNG PEOPLE BASED ON YOUR EXPERIENCE?

Save your money so can have enough to do something when you want to. It’s too easy to spend it when you get it…but if you ain’t got something coming back in and you ain’t got a good income, you can get into a lot of trouble. I’ve gotten into debt a couple of times and was worried about where my next meal was coming from. Then, I started saving my money up and was careful with what I was doing. Paid off my debts and then I could call something my own. After that, I bought two new Ford pick-up trucks at different times. I bought one, had it for a while and then traded it in for another one.

WHAT DO YOU THINK BETHEL WILL BE LIKE IN THE FUTURE?

I think it’s going to be just like Conway, New Hampshire. They started out golfing and everything was peaceful…then they built up and built up…it’s a regular city now. The traffic is getting heavier now. The main artery going right through town here…26 goes up through Grafton Notch…in time of war this would be a popular place to get control of and get control of the highways. My experience in war, if you had intersections up like this here, they would go after it to keep it and hold it.

WHAT IS YOUR MOST MEMORABLE EXPERIENCE?

I really don’t know what to tell you on that.

WHAT WAS YOUR WORST MEMORY?

Oh, well, it was all during the war. I wouldn’t tell you anyway…I don’t tell nobody, so …I’ve had lot of narrow escapes and things like that. Hope I never have another one. Kind of hard going to war and seeing young fellows like yourself getting killed. My experiences…those people over in Africa and Germany…they don’t have any respect for human life at all. Not a bit. We had guys they….captured…they surrendered to them, laid their guns down and took out their ammunition. What they did was they lined them up and brought up two tanks and machine gunned them to death right there in the field. Now, you call that having respect for human life? I don’t. But, to get back at them, they took all the officers within that outfit and ordered them shot and so they shot them. They told them what they should have done. There was nothing they could do about it but stand there and take it. Hitler shot some of his own generals because he didn’t think they were doing what they should have done. When you shoot your own men who are fighting for you…you must be pretty sick in the mind. I just read a thing in a magazine saying France is going to give all us guys that went through France a recitation…we have to fill out this paper before we’ll get it. I had my daughter get the form off the internet. They’re going to send me the papers ….I’ll see what I get.