I was born on the 18th of February 1949, in Wentworth Douglas Hospital, Dover, Strafford County, New Hampshire. Laurice Gilbert Clark, (later to be discovered as Laurice G. Edgerly) and Eloise Mae Smith were to be my father and mother. Life is just a blip until my first memory and thoughts. It happened in a flash, my eyes were seeing now.
I was sitting in a walker. One of those springy things, a seat of canvass with four spidery legs and clear, hard plastic wheels. I could see the wall of a house, the studs and framing. Three people were nailing, what I now know to be tarpaper, to the outside of the house.
This was to be my home. A tar paper house with over-lapping roof shingles covering the whole house. They called them "tar paper shacks" back then. It was a way of describing one's station in life. "Laurice lives in a tarpaper shack out on Mast Road ya know?" is how it would have been conveyed. All the hidden messages were passed so cunningly in the New England vernacular.
The house was probably 20'X20' square, with a chimney in the center. On one side was a wood stove for cooking. Those big black ones with the Iron Spring lifters, and heavy plates over the holes. My father later converted it to fuel oil, burning wicks. On the other side of the Chimney was a "Ben Franklin", pot bellied stove. It would get to roaring so hard that the cracks in the metal would glow bright orange. I remember having all of three beds, one dresser, one sofa, one chair, a 3'X3' kitchen table with three squeaking, broken wood chairs, repaired with baling wire, around it, and one stool. That was the extent of our furniture and belongings.
There was a hand pump at the wooden sink, and beside it a mason jar filled with water from the last user to "prime" the water pump that went to our well. In the beginning there were oil lamps in every room with high glass chimneys. Winter days in New England are dark when there is no electricity.
A "thunder jug", or porcelain potty sat in one of the corners of the little house. It was white, and used as an indoor bathroom in the middle of cold winter nights. It became my job to empty it in the morning. I would drag it to the outhouse and hopefully do it without spilling any. Our outhouse was a hole in the ground at the end of the barn. What is now overgrown deciduous trees, was once large fields growing corn and other vegetables, along with an apple orchard. "The Woods" sat back about a football field's length from the back of the house. Our visitors were the vegetable truck that came by about twice a week and the ice truck that delivered large blocks to go into the top of our ice box. We had our own chickens and traded eggs for milk from the farmer next door. Life was simple, we had simple things.
My first school was Woodman Park, and my first teacher, Mrs. Garrish. . and Mrs. Hatch, an elderly mean woman who always scowled at us kids was my second grade teacher. Everyone was afraid of her. She yelled, alot. I remember that we sat at attention, and our desks had to be right on the lines of the floor boards. If it was off an inch, we were in trouble. In the third grade, at Pierce Street School, Mrs. Hoar looked just like George Washington's picture on the wall. She was very nice. Next came Sawyer Elementary, Horne Street Middle School and then, Dover High School. I wish I could say I was a good student but I can't. With little food in my stomach and an emotionally cold home, school was just something I had to do.
Nine days after graduation from high school I was at Ft Dix, New Jersey in Basic training. I was in the Army at the height of the Viet Nam war. I remember my mindset. I was not afraid, but excited and volunteered for Viet Nam. So, after basic training and advanced individual training I was off and running to Southeast Asia.
This, unfinished post was left by my wonderful husband. I, Karen DeEtte Clark, take the opportunity to publish one of his final works for his children and the world to see, enjoy, and through its words further understand him and his many idiosyncrasies. He will always be loved by those who knew him and missed by his family.
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