Roland Annis interviewed by Richard Ade - February 9, 2001

• Annis, Roland E. (Roland Ellis), 1928-

Richard Ade Interviews

PLEASE STATE YOUR FULL NAME.

Roland Annis.

WHEN WERE YOU BORN? 

I was born in Gorham, New Hampshire on November 8, 1928 in the Gorham house they called it and the building is still standing up there.

HOW MANY PEOPLE IN YOUR FAMILY?

I had a brother and a sister and two half sisters.

WHAT WAS YOUR FATHER’S OCCUPATION?

He was a railroad man.  He worked on the railroad for 45 years.  Before that he was on the box signals, building kerosene lights on the railroad. 

WHAT WAS YOUR MOTHER’S OCCUPATION?

She was a nurse and she used to go around the houses and if there was a sick person, she’d stay right in the house until they passed away and take care of them.  Then, the last of it she ran a nursing home in Gilead.

WHAT WAS LIFE LIKE AT HOME?

Very good.  It was a happy family.  We got along good.  I stayed home until I was 18 then I went out on my own.

WHAT WERE YOUR GRANDPARENTS LIKE?

I didn’t know my grandparents too well.  My father’s father died when I was a year old.  He died in 1929 and then my mother’s father, he died in 1936 so I knew him some.  He was a nice person.  He got wounded in World War I.  He got gassed.  But, he lived until 1936 and he lived with us.  My grandmother owned a boarding house in Gorham.  That’s where I was born.  She had boarders there and stuff…skiers.  I remember her pretty good.  She died during World War II in the 40’s. 

WHAT ARE YOUR EARLIEST MEMORIES?

Well, I can remember the flood in 1936.  There was a bad flood.  And, the hurricane in 1938, I remember that.  Then, I don’t know.  Those were probably the biggest things, you know.

WHAT WERE SOME OF YOUR MOST IMPORTANT EARLIEST INFLUENCES?

Oh, I don’t know.  I looked up to my father and mother.  Then, I used to work for a fellow here in Bethel…Billy Chapman.  He had a farm just a couple of houses up from here, you know where they’re rebuilding the house.  Then he had a farm over on West Bethel Road.  I worked for him when I was a young fellow.  I was probably 10 years old when I started working on the farm and stuff.  On my 13^th birthday, I spent it in the hospital for three months.  I was running a hay fork on the barn.  Picking up hay and putting it up in the barn and I stood over the barn door and jumped down and straddled a stake.  I did a lot of damage.  I spent a long time in the hospital.  I had to learn to walk again and I had seven big operations.  I worked for him and done chores after school nights.  He was good.  It was a good time. 

WHERE DID YOU GO TO SCHOOL?

I went here to ….Witbee school and then I went to the brick school house on High Street to the eighth grade.  That’s all I went was to the eighth grade.  Then I went to work. 

WHAT WERE YOUR TEACHERS LIKE?

My teachers were all right.  I didn’t care for school, you know.  I took and went only cause I had to, I guess.  I liked to work better.  But, I didn’t have much of an education but I’ve always been a foreman all my life in the Oxford Paper Company.  I worked for the Maine D.O.T. for 31 years and I was a foreman for them.  But, before that, in the 50’s, I worked for the town of Bethel and I ran a power grader there from 1950 to 1957.  Then, I became a foreman.  My boss had a heart attack and I took his job.  I filled in there until 1960 and then I went to the state and retired from the state.  Now, I still work summers running a bulldozer and stuff for a contractor.  He worked for me for 13 years…Danny Wilson…Now I work for him.  Something to do in the summer. 

WHAT DID YOU LIKE MOST ABOUT GROWING UP?

Growing up?  Well, I liked it after I got out of school and working on the farm.  I liked to farm awfully well.  They had horses and they must have been 75 head of cattle.  And, I used to like to plow and harrow with the tractor.  Because, I had done that when I was just a kid, you know.  We worked most of the time back then.  We didn’t have much money to do anything…like what they do today.  If we got $5 or $6 a week, that was pretty good.  We didn’t have money….my uncle ran the bowling alley, there.  JB Chapman.  We used to go there and set up pins when we were growing up.  You’d get five cents a string.  I used to work for him.  Then, I got my license when I was 16 and I used to drive the school bus.  That was in Albany.  Then, I drove taxi quite a bit.  Then, he had a bunch of trucks and I drove truck for a while.  

WHAT WERE SOME OF YOUR WORST WORK EXPERIENCES?

I guess probably when I got hurt that time on the farm.  I laid in the hospital room a long time.  I remember that was hard.  I was young, but still it was a pretty lonesome time.  But, other than that, I had a pretty good life.  I had a wonderful wife and good life.  If I had it to do over again and the same thing, I just as soon work for the state and do it over again.  Awful nice people I worked for. 

WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER ABOUT WORLD WAR II?

Well, I was pretty young then.  But, I had a paper route and Gerry Davis here in Bethel, he had a paper route.  His father was the fellow who brought the papers into Bethel, Earl Davis.  He told Gerry, he said you guys be on the overhead bridge at 4:00 am tomorrow morning.  They are going to take a load of German prisoners to Stark, New Hampshire.  Well, we went over there at 4:00 and pretty soon the train came.  It was a big passenger train full of German prisoners.  We didn’t dare leave the bridge.  We were afraid some of them would jump off.  That was quite an experience.  They took them up to Stark.  That’s where they took them..up there in the boon docks.  Some of those German prisoners come here in the summer time where they was up there just to see it again.  I remember, every night my uncle, at his bowling alley there, they’d listen to Gabrielle Hedah, he was a news man and he would tell about the war and how it was going.  But, I was pretty young then.  It was different. 

WHAT PRESIDENT DID YOU LIKE BEST?

I liked Clinton.  I liked Clinton even with the way he was, you know.  He was a very good president.  And, Kennedy.  Of course, Roosevelt was outstanding.  Clinton was a good president.

WHAT PRESIDENT DID YOU LIKE LEAST?

I think Ford. 

WHY?

Well, I think he got that president’s job because he pardoned Nixon.  I think..you know, I liked them all, but I think there was a different deal there, you know.  Carter was good but he wasn’t like a …Clinton was the best.  If he hadn’t gotten into that mess which was none of our business…if he just hadn’t of lied…he could have said it’s just none of your business, I think he would have been all right.  Course, he lied.  But, he’s a human being like the rest of us.  Those things come up and he’s no different than we are, you know.  A nice looking woman comes along…you know, he’s got a little animal blood in him like the rest of us. 

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE MOST IMPORTANT CHANGES IN YOUR LIFETIME?

When I got married, I think.  That was one of the biggest steps in my life, when I got married.  My wife was Louise Bishop…She graduated from Youngstown, Ohio.  She got out of school in 1949.  Her mother ran the Bethel restaurant down on Main Street and she worked there.  I met her and we got married in 1951.  We went down…course, we had to get a blood test.  You had to get one when you got married.  We went down to Win Tronto..who lived down there on Church Street, right across from the school there.  We went in..course he had been our doctor for years.  He gave us a blood test and I asked him how much I owed him…and he said Oh, get the hell out of here.  That’s the way the doctor saw it back then.  That would normally be fifty bucks, you know. When I was little, he’d always come to the house with his little suitcase.  If you were sick, you’d call him and he’d come to the house.  They had four or five doctors around here back then and three or four barber shops.  There ain’t too much of that now.  Course, the health center is good. 

HOW DID YOU MEET YOUR WIFE?

I met her at the Bethel restaurant.  Her mother took and rented at my Uncle’s.  He owned an apartment house down here on Main Street by the bowling alley.  Her mother lived in the apartment house and I lived with my Uncle..my aunt and uncle.  I boarded there and worked for them.  We were married for 43 years but I knew her for 45 years.  She worked at Martha’s restaurant, years ago.  Then she worked for Miron Bryant and run the IGA store…Bryant’s Market, they called it, where the Key Bank is now.  And then she came up to the new IGA at the one across from Brooks Brothers.  Then she went over to Brooks Brothers.  She worked there for 25 years.  She retired and she fell down and broke her wrist.  They set it and it was crooked.  She went back to the hospital to have it set over again and something got in her bloodstream and she got…I was down there in the morning, down to Norway Hospital and she was just as happy as she always was.  She loved Bethel and she loved the people of Bethel.  She was just as happy as ever.  That afternoon they called me at 4:00 and she was brain dead.  She had drawn one pension check.  So, that’s been a sad thing, for me.  I still live alone and still have the house.  I hate to give the house up…it’s big.  But, so many memories, you know.  We had some good times there.

DO YOU HAVE ANY CHILDREN?

Yes.  I have one boy.  Scott.  He works in the woods.  I have three grandchildren.  Two grandsons and one grand daughter.  We have a daughter that we brought up…we were the legal guardian of…she lives in Columbus, Ohio.  She works for a big insurance company.  She comes every year.  She has a big job in Columbus, Ohio.  My boy Scott, he works in the woods.  He has a skidder and works in the woods. 

WHERE HAVE YOU LIVED?

Well, I’ve lived in Rumford.  I had an apartment in Rumford before I was married in 1950.  Then, we got married and we lived down there and I worked for the Oxford Paper Company for about a year, year and a half.  And, I didn’t like that three shift business..work three shifts.  Louise didn’t care for it because it was pretty lonesome to her.  She didn’t drive then.  So, I said I’m coming back to Bethel to do something.  And I went to work…there’s all kinds of work if you wanted it…saw mills, etc.  So, we came back here and I worked down in the saw mill down at Grafton Lumber Company running the fork lift.  Louise worked with her mother in the restaurant.  We lived at Harvey Bradgon’s then.  We got a rent in there.  He had three or four apartments there and so we got an apartment there from Harvey and lived there.  He ran the movie hall at Ogden Hall.  Years ago when I was a kid, he used to let this Raymond Chapman in for nothing.  Raymond would go in and when the move would start, he’d go over to the fire escape and let some of us kids in because we didn’t have ten cents to go to the movies.  So, he’d let some of us in and we sit in the front row and watch a movie.  So, this Harvey, I rented from, we got pretty friendly, you know.  And, I was telling him about it.  He said, I knew it…I just let you through.  He knew it though.  He charged me…I had to pay my rent by the week instead of by the month.  He gained on it…

WHAT ARE YOUR HOBBIES?

Well, I like to work pretty well, but I got a shop where I go out and make stuff.  I’m making a set of drawers for my grand daughter now.  I like my word working place where I can putter away.  I don’t sell nothing…I like to give it away.  But, it’s something to do, you know.  I like to go out there in the barn…They have a big barn where they used to keep the cattle and I made me a little shop there and insulated it.  It’s nice and warm in there.  I like to go out and putter in there.  I have a four wheeler…I like to go with that riding.  I’ll take and get my wood and stuff.  But, I work pretty heavy in the summer time.  I run a power grader for Danny…and I do three or four towns…dirt roads.  Then, I also run a bull dozer.  Like last summer I cleared eleven acres at a horse farm in West Bethel.  I like that because it doesn’t bother me to work by myself.  I have a snow machine and I do a little snow machining in the winter town.  The Maine trail goes right through my door yard, pretty near.  I can go almost anywhere I want to. 

HOW LONG HAVE YOU LIVED IN BETHEL?

Well, I’ve been here nearly all my life.  I lived in Rumford for a year or so and Albany for a couple of years.  We lived in Albany when I first started school and we lived out there.  I had to work a mile and a half the first days I went to school.  They didn’t have no buses or nothing.  So, we walked to school there.  Then, they closed the one room school…they had eight grades in one room.  So, they closed that after a year or so and then they hauled us up to Albany town house.  There was a school house there.  I went there not too long.  Then they closed that…we had moved to Bethel by then.  That’s where I went to school.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE BEST ABOUT THIS AREA? 

Oh, I love the mountains.  Up to my house there, you take in the morning, about 6:00 or 6:30 and you can see Mt. Abram in the sun before it comes up.  It is so pretty.  I like the snow, too.  I don’t care for the fall until the snow gets here because it’s cold.  But, when the snow is here, I like that.  Oh, it’s a nice area and the people are nice here.  Years ago, we used to know everybody in the town.  Now, the ski way has come in and stuff, you know.  There are a lot of people you don’t know…but they’re nice people.  So, I like it here.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE THE LEAST ABOUT THIS AREA?

Well, I don’t know.  I don’t have much of a problem with it.  I think it’s all right as far as I’m concerned.  I don’t know of a better place I’d rather be. 

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE CHANGED?

Well, not too much.  You know, it’s doing pretty good.  I’d like to see the ski way do a little better.  You know, get back going.  But, they need snow and I’d like to see them do a little better if they can.  Hopefully, they’ll get back going.  But, outside of that, it’s all right with me.

WHAT COMMUNITY SERVICE ACTIVITIES ARE YOU IN?

Well, I went up to the handicap place up on the mountain…I’ve worked up there for six years.  And, Wilbur, here, he was up there the same time I was.  He broke his leg so he couldn’t come back.  I worked up there…six years…you do it for nothing, you know.  They give you a pass, but of course I don’t ski, so I gave it away.  But, they were getting pretty strict about if somebody got hurt or something so you had to be pretty careful because you could end up in a mess.  If you are doing something for nothing, I just didn’t want to take the chance, you know. Because you could lose everything, you know.  People are pretty sue crazy.  They sue pretty easy today.  So, I done six years and I figured I done my share. 

HOW ARE YOU CONNECTED WITH THE BETHEL HISTORICAL SOCIETY?

Oh, I take and give them money and stuff but I don’t do much.  I should but I don’t.  Course, I’m 72 years old and I work a lot so by the time I get home and get my supper and I do my own cooking and stuff…I’m ready to sit down and take it easy.  I really don’t get out to do much.  But, I have built screens for the meeting house down here and built a screen door for the church…down in East Bethel.  The family wanted me to build a screen door.  Then I put all the screens on the meeting house.  Louise was pretty active in the meeting house.  She was more active than I was.  When I worked for the state, I was out of town most of the time.  I built a state aid road for 13 years and I traveled from town to town…Lisbon to Lewiston…all over.  The towns would raise money and the state would put the money with it and then we’d take the money and build the road.  You might have $20,000 to build in that spot and you had bulldozers and graders and all that stuff went with me.  That’s what I did there.  Then, for 18 years, I took and ran the Bethel State camp over here.  That’s 250 miles of road that are being maintained out of there.  I had a pick up and I’d put 1200 miles a week on that.  I did a lot of riding.  I had fifteen men there and a grader and trucks and all that stuff to keep them busy.  You know, finding the worst places …we were pretty busy on that.  But, Louise, she did a lot here in Bethel.  Different things.

WHAT DO YOU CONSIDER SOME OF YOUR MOST IMPORTANT DECISIONS?

Oh, I don’t know.  I think eventually I’ll take and give my house over to my son.  Hopefully, if it gets so I can’t take care of myself, they can come up and help me.  They’re pretty happy by themselves.  He has a nice home down in Lockes Mills.  Just play it by ear, I guess, and see what happens. 

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

Well, as I told my grandchildren, you’ve got to have a trade, you know.  You’ve got to have something that is a trade…work…Like my oldest grandson, he’s a cook.  He went to school and learned to be a cook…a chef.  Now, he works over in New Hampshire in those high class restaurants making big bucks.  And, he’s just a young fellow.  My next grandson, he’s going to Berlin Tech school to be a diesel mechanic and a hydraulic man and to learn to weld.  See, you’ve got to have a trade today.  When I was a kid, you could go out in the woods with a buck saw and ax and get by.  But, you can’t anymore.  There’s no work around like that.  You’ve got to be able to run something.  Like me, you know.  There’s nobody here who cares about running that grader or the D-6.  If they did, I’d feel foolish about taking that job.  Nobody cares about it.  Danny, he’s got eight to ten men around but they care less about running it.  The old grader…if they come to get it, I have to leave it running.  They don’t even want to start it.  But, you’ve go to have a trade today to survive.  It really don’t make a difference what you want to do.  You know, grader men get big money.  All these construction jobs…they get $20 to $25 per hour.  It’s good money, you know.  We had a fellow come back around from out West.  He works for Danny now.  He was making $18 per hour running a front end loader, you know, out west.  But, they got homesick.  They came from Maine and they came back.  You gotta have a trade.  Know how to run something.

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

Well, it’s changing a lot.  But, I think it will be a city, one of these days.  But, I don’t know…if I …I think there’s around 2400 in Bethel.  I don’t know how much that’s changed now…if it has grown that much or not.  It hadn’t grown much for years and years.  It probably is growing now.  But a lot of people, I don’t know.  Course, a lot of people move out and move in.  But, I think it’s going to grow.  I think it will be big, you know.  It’s spreading out a lot, you know.

WHAT WAS THE BIGGEST SNOW FALL YOU’VE EVER SEEN?

Well, 1968/1969 we had around 110 inches of snow that winter.  We got two or three storms with 18 inches.  Hunting season in November, the deer couldn’t go in 1968.  If you came onto a track of a deer in that year and you had on snow shoes, you’d catch that deer.  I took and we had hard work to keep the roads open.  We took and had a big snow blower come down from the county.  I was working on the highway then and it was a four stage snow blower.  I remember six or eight feet high.  He come down and we had to run a pilot car ahead of that to tell him where the houses were because the snow banks were so high, we couldn’t see the houses. That was so we wouldn’t blow snow into the houses.  Out here in Albany, we took and forgot about a house there.  Nobody lived in it.  But, the next spring there,  the snow and rocks and stuff had gone through the front window and stoved the living room completely out.  We had to buy them a new living room.  But, that was the biggest one.  Do you remember up in  Grafton Notch…..those caves and that area.  It’s beautiful up in there.  After we ran those blowers through, at night time you would see lights come in oh for five minutes and they’d be shining off those banks where we had gone with our snow blower.  That was a funny thing.  That snow blower was neat…I’ve got pictures.  That snow blower would blow snow 500 feet.  Like, up here at the mill in West Bethel.  We didn’t want to shoot it into the lumber yard because you’d get a lot of dirt and stuff.  So, we shot it right across the road and across the railroad tracks..that snow.  Real powerful.  Something to see.  We had it down here for about three weeks.

DO YOU HAVE ANY HUMOROUS STORIES? 

Well, some of them are not…well, no, not too much.