{"id":904,"date":"2013-08-19T19:58:18","date_gmt":"2013-08-20T00:58:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/?p=904"},"modified":"2019-06-30T22:04:17","modified_gmt":"2019-07-01T03:04:17","slug":"recollections-of-emerson-davis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/recollections-of-emerson-davis\/","title":{"rendered":"Recollections of Emerson Davis"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Emerson<\/a>
Emerson Jewett Davis.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Introduction by Diane Brenner<\/strong><\/p>\n

Emerson Jewett Davis (\u201cEmmy\u201d) was born in North Adams, Massachusetts on February 17, 1888, the sixth child in the Davis family. His father, Raymond Harrison Davis, was a Vermont-born architect\/carpenter; his mother, Harriet Emeline Wilson, was originally from Groton, Massachusetts. Emerson was preceded by Orrin (b. 1876), Ida (1878), Walter (1880), Mary (1882) and Rockwell (1886). Three years after his birth, his mother bore a set of twins, Harriet and Harrison (1891).<\/p>\n

In 1902, at the age of 14, Emerson left school to help work in the family grocery store in North Adams. He eventually returned to school (Mt. Hermon School for Boys in Gill, MA) in 1906 (age 18) to study art and design, but did not graduate. Sponsored by a wealthy New Yorker who admired his work, he studied for two more years at the Pratt Institute in New York before dropping out once again. In June 1911, Emmy\u2019s younger sister Harriet married Walter Higgins of Worthington and moved there to live with him. Following his father’s death on Christmas day, 1913, Emmy traveled briefly to Africa as part of a Museum of Natural History taxidermy group, and then to Europe as an employee of Cooks Tours, providing tours of museums and at one point lecturing at a Paris art school. When he returned to North Adams, he worked as a landscaper and gardener, also creating paintings and writing poetry.<\/p>\n

In 1917 Emmy registered for the draft, but sought and was granted conscientious objector status after he stated that he would rather be shot than forced to kill his German \u201cbrothers”; the draft board was loathe to make him a martyr. Letting his hair and beard grow was part of his protest against the First World War. Although he also registered for the draft during World War II, he remained a conscientious objector throughout his life, proudly affirming his opposition to the war in Vietnam.<\/p>\n

\"Dingle-Road-home\"<\/a>
Emerson Davis home on Dingle Road, likely before he bought it. Figure unidentified.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Being a conscientious objector was not a popular stance during the First World War, and at the end of 1917 Emerson moved with his widowed mother from North Adams to a new home in Worthington, characterizing himself as a \u201cpolitical exile.\u201d In October 1917 Emmy paid $1000 to Howard Mason for 50 acres with a house along Dingle Road. The 1920 census lists him as living there with his mother, along with his sister Harriet and her family. The 1930 entry for that property lists only him and his aging mother, who died in October 1935 at the age of 85. In the 1940 census he is listed as living with Harriet and her family, possibly at a different Worthington location.<\/p>\n

\"1930-census\"<\/a>
1930 census listing for Emerson Davis and his mother Harriet (at bottom).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By the 1920s, Emmy, identified as a farmer on the 1920 census, was well established in Worthington and found much work as a landscaper. Over the years he became increasingly involved with the Worthington Grange (later the Pomona Grange), the Congregational Church, and town government. From the 1930s and well into the 1960s, his name is frequently mentioned in the local newspapers and associated with one event or another. He was in charge of decorations at both the Church and the Town Hall, and he rang the bell for Sunday services. He served as an officer of the Worthington Grange, arranging and overseeing numerous meetings, events and contests including the annual \u201csugar eats.\u201d His positions on behalf of Worthington included cemetery commissioner for North Cemetery, Town Hall custodian, “special police officer,” and gypsy moth superintendent. Always artistic, he capitalized on two large snowstorms in the 1950s and 1960s by building snow arches that remain embedded in many memories.<\/p>\n

\"Emerson<\/a>
Emerson Davis appointed gypsy moth superintendent, as reported in the Springfield Daily Republican,<\/i> March 10, 1942.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Emmy’s most famous role, however, was managing the disposal area, which he did free of charge, but with despotic and eco-conscious precision. Located on the land he owned on Dingle Road, the dump was formally placed in operation in 1946. The enormous pride he took in the facility was reflected in his pressuring the town to officially proclaim it a \u201cdisposal area\u201d at the 1955 Town Meeting. As a result of changes in state law, the disposal area was finally closed in 1977 and relocated to town property near the center of town. Many years later, environmental testing showed the Dingle Road site to be remarkably clean and toxin-free.<\/p>\n

In 1931, Emmy\u2019s 50 acres along Dingle Road were set aside for the creation of the Glen Grove Wildlife Sanctuary, while remaining his property. (It\u2019s unclear how long Emmy and his mother continued to live there.) Dedicated to Russell Conwell, the land was intended to provide a beautiful place for walking and contemplation. On October 21, 1935, Emmy took advantage of a tax lien and purchased the 180 acres across Dingle Road for the amount of back taxes due: $30.79! The disposal area was located on this land.<\/p>\n

Emmy lived to be 90. During his later years, as his health failed, he was celebrated by the town and supported by many caring individuals. He was allowed to live in the Town Hall until his final illness, when it became clear he needed more help. In his will, he donated his land and Glen Grove Wildlife Sanctuary to the residents of the town of Worthington. After some debate involving the funding for Emmy\u2019s final nursing home costs, the town accepted the gift, and the land was deeded to the town in 1980.<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s what else I have learned about Emmy. He said he stopped smoking when he was 17. In 1942, when he registered for the WWII draft, he was 5′ 7\u00be” tall and weighed 160 pounds. He slept on a table at the Town Hall, with a cardboard mattress and newspaper blankets. He was generous and deeply committed to his Christian transcendental beliefs, and he lived as close to the earth as he could. He was a perfectionist, and if you put your trash in the wrong place he would call you out in the blink of an eye. He never learned to drive because people would always pick him up, no matter how bad he smelled. And he ate raw hamburger daily, washed down with buttermilk, which grossed a lot of people out.<\/p>\n

An unusual amount of information about Emmy is available in the public record, from which we have culled many details. But these articles and documents only provide the basic facts and small windows into his life. Emmy Davis the person lives on in the memories of those who knew and worked with him.<\/p>\n

\"1963<\/a>
1963 profile of Emerson Davis in the Daily Hampshire Gazette<\/i>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"1963<\/a>
1963 profile, continued.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“Recollections of Emerson Davis”: Sunday, June 23, 2013, 2:00\u20134:00pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

The following is a transcription of \u201cRecollections of Emerson Davis,\u201d a kind of community storytelling event at the Worthington Historical Society. Minimal editing has been applied for readability, and editorial clarifications are in brackets. If you would like to share your own memories of Emmy, please contact anyone on the WHS board; further remembrances are included after the transcription and can still be added to this exhibit.<\/i>\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Around 50 people were in attendance. Diane Brenner served as an informal moderator, and led things off with an introduction about Emerson Davis, concluding with \u201cI never knew him, but I hope those of you who did will share what you know. So thank you.\u201d\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

[applause]<\/p>\n

Helen Sharron Pollard: So should we tell stories? I\u2019ll just start because \u2013<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: You have to say who you are.<\/p>\n

Helen Sharron Pollard: Yes, I will, I\u2019ll say who I am and why I\u2019m going to start, and why I think this is so important for us to do today, because memories of people like Emerson Davis are disappearing. I\u2019m in my fifties; I remember him from the time I was six until he died when I was seventeen. It\u2019s a shame to lose those memories if we don\u2019t. If you don\u2019t know who I am, I\u2019m Helen Sharron Pollard. I\u2019m the president of the Historical Society and the daughter of Julia and Connie [Cornelius] Sharron. So I\u2019ll just start this with a little memory, and it\u2019s not really a memory about Emerson Davis himself, but it\u2019s really more about his presence. Because if you live in this town, eventually you\u2019ll get to know that we have the Congregational Church, and that\u2019s it. And there are lots of old churches around town that we have, but there\u2019s no Catholic church. There was one in Huntington. And there weren\u2019t a lot of Catholic families in town, but boy [were they?] [laughter]. So there were a few years in the \u201960s and \u201970s where the priest from St. Thomas parish in Huntington would come up to Worthington, and Emmy would set up the Town Hall for us to have Mass. And he would put those beautiful wooden slatted chairs out in a semicircle, kind of like we\u2019re sitting today, and the altar would be in the front of the church [in the Town Hall], right underneath the basketball hoop. And the Sharrons would sit here, and the Ryans would sit there, and the Modestows \u2013 depending on who was later, would come in the back with their families. And we had a Mass. And you could count on him taking care of that, all the time, he was in the background. And [sermon-wise?] I\u2019m not sure that this town could have moved forward without his service to us. So that\u2019s my childhood thought about one aspect. Plenty of others; certainly the eating hamburger was awful [laughter]. So can I just tag somebody out of the group? My mom is Julie Sharron, and she was selectman of the town \u2013 I think selected just before Emerson passed. And my mom was the first female selectperson in the Hills.<\/p>\n

\"Emmy's<\/a>
Emmy’s church decorations, 1940s.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Julia Sharron: Well I\u2019m Julie Sharron and I certainly do have a lot of wonderful memories of Emerson. One of the things \u2013 and I\u2019m sure other people will talk about \u2013 is the disposal area on Dingle Road. If you didn\u2019t separate your garbage and do it just right he would yell at you. However, he would be there all day long sorting through people\u2019s garbage, making sure everything was just right. Many times at nightfall, you would see somebody coming down the road, and who would it be but Mr. Davis after a long, hard day of work, walking from Dingle Road \u2013 in the middle, because there were no streetlights \u2013 to the Town Hall, because that\u2019s where he was residing. I also remember Mr. Davis when we had our \u201csugar-on-snow.\u201d It would be maple syrup, and we would have snow and pickles. The Town Hall would be full, and he would set up the tables and chairs for that. Nobody could pick up these double chairs because they would scratch the floor. And believe me, they were heavy. And he, every year, put aside snow so that we could have it for the sugar-on-snow, which was really a wonderful thing as well, and then there was dancing afterwards. And I also, with the other board of selectmen \u2013 he was living at the Town Hall, and we became very concerned because he was failing, and if he put water on or anything on the stove, he would forget it. And so we came to the conclusion that we had to do something. He got paid also from the town for doing some of his duties, but checks were all over. They were in the water fountain, they were in the cellar, they were all over [laughter]. And so with everything like this going on, we thought we would have to get him into a nursing home, and it would be the best thing for him, for his safety. And he probably didn\u2019t like that too well. But anyway, we made arrangements. I brought him down, and they said \u201cbring all his clothes and toiletries,\u201d and I said, \u201cWait a minute, I\u2019m bringing Mr. Davis, he doesn\u2019t have anything<\/i>.\u201d I said, \u201cI\u2019ll bring him there. He does need a shower and everything,\u201d but I said, \u201cI will run out.\u201d And there was a store in Florence, I don\u2019t remember the name of it, but it was right at the corner. I left Mr. Davis off, ran to the store, got whatever they told me to get \u2013 pants, pajamas, and all this \u2013 brought it over. And so every day, for about two-and-a-half to three months, I went down to get Mr. Davis at the nursing home, brought him up here to the Town Hall, and he thought he was still working. He would take that broom, and he would go up and down the floor, all day long, sweeping the floor, because he was in his mind thinking he was the custodian still. And everybody respected him. He was there for the kids to play basketball all the time. He was always there for somebody. And towards the end of his life he was getting a little cranky \u2013 if they were too noisy he\u2019d kick \u2019em out \u2013 but he was a wonderful person. And those are my reminiscences of Mr. Davis.<\/p>\n

\",<\/a>
The Springfield Union,<\/i> March 13, 1956.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A<\/a>
A Worthington “sugar eat,” c. late 50s to early 60s.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Evan Johnson: Julie, can you answer Diane\u2019s question about when he moved into Town Hall?<\/p>\n

Julia Sharron: Well, I don\u2019t really know. We moved into Worthington in \u201966 and he was already living there. And his bed was just a sheet of cardboard that he put on the table.<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: Does anybody know?<\/p>\n

Janet Dimock: It was sometimes the story that his house fell down in the \u201938 hurricane, but I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s true or not.<\/p>\n

?: That\u2019s the story I heard.<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: So from \u201938? Well the 1940 census says<\/i> he\u2019s living with his sister, but that\u2019s not necessarily true. Ben?<\/p>\n

Benjamin Brown: I know from what my dad had told me, he first moved into the Town Hall to stoke the boilers on cold nights when things would have frozen otherwise. And little by little he just stayed there more and more often. I don\u2019t know exactly when that was. It sounds like somewhere around there, maybe before World War II.<\/p>\n

\"Emmy<\/a>
Emmy is appointed to the flower show committee, as reported in The Berkshire Eagle,<\/i> August 4, 1950.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Marcia Feakes: Emerson liked native plants. He did our garden, and our wedding in \u201958. And he was going to have [twee trucks?], which are known now as \u2013 anyway, he couldn\u2019t get them so he went down to Westfield and ordered what he wanted, and as my brother said, he had expensive tastes [laughter]. He used to arrive at our house at suppertime, we\u2019d give him supper. He would plant our whole garden, it\u2019s still there. Some of the things, like euonymus alatus I don\u2019t particularly want, but it\u2019s there, and I\u2019m not going to worry about it now. But he was always able to do gardens, and he had ideas, and they were not ordinary ideas, they were something above. When we had the Drury [?] house on Old Post Road, he put in the lawn, and my father said he put in [breen\u2019s cress?], you know, it was so fine, instead of the ordinary grass. So he knew what he was doing, I think, and he was a lot of fun, and he was intelligent.<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: Please say who you are.<\/p>\n

Warren Packard: I\u2019m Warren Packard, better known in this area as \u201cBam.\u201d Pete\u2019s brother, probably which identifies me. Ted [Porter] and I were just talking about it, we think he moved into Town Hall right after World War II. Ted has just pointed out that he lived for a while in the church, when there was a stove in the basement of the church. When that was discontinued he moved into Town Hall. But Marty [Marcia Feakes], your comments about his landscaping \u2013 I can still remember so clearly, Emerson had very firm ideas about how lawns were to be mowed. Of course in those days you mowed with a real mower, by hand. And you must mow straight back and forth, never around the edges as we all do, until we finally got it down at the point in the middle. It had to be done properly. And so if you worked for him, you learned to do that properly, or you didn\u2019t work for him very much. So he was very firm about that.<\/p>\n

Marcia Feakes: I don\u2019t know that he mowed our lawn, it was usually somebody else, but I can imagine that he was fussy.<\/p>\n

Warren Packard: He also always kept the Town Hall locked. We kids were welcome to go there. I think Julie [Julia Sharron] mentioned that the kids were still shooting baskets long after Ted [Porter] and I had grown too old to lift the ball. But we were welcome to be there any time he was there, as long as we didn\u2019t break anything or do any damage. When he wasn\u2019t there, so that he wouldn\u2019t lose the key, he always hid the key somewhere outside, around Town Hall. It never took us more than fifteen minutes to find it [laughter]. We used the Town Hall a lot when Emmy wasn\u2019t there. And we learned a lot of philosophy. And what else did we learn from Emmy, Ted, would you say? Whatever we learned as kids we learned from Emmy, pretty much.<\/p>\n

Marcia Feakes: He was born in North Adams, he used to talk about when they went through the mountain there \u2013<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: The Hoosac Tunnel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Marcia Feakes: Yeah, yeah. He knew all about that, that was quite an engineering job in its day.<\/p>\n

Deen Nugent: Maybe that\u2019s where he got the idea \u2013 I\u2019m sure Ted remembers \u2013 remember when he built the arch into the church from the snow bank?<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: Probably there were two, at least \u2013 one in \u201958, and one in \u201947. In\u00a0 \u201947 there was apparently a huge blizzard \u2013<\/p>\n

Deen Nugent: That\u2019s probably the one I remember.<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: \u2013 and then he kind of reproduced it in 1968.<\/p>\n

\"Snow<\/a>
The Springfield Union,<\/i> February 28, 1958.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Pat Kennedy: I have a question. Was there ever any romance? Oh Ted, Ted would know [laughter].<\/p>\n

Ted Porter: I can answer that question. There was a lady by the name of Greta Klein who lived in the White Rock Farm down on Fisk Road, and he was intending to marry her. She did give him plenty of meals; he used to go down there and do work and he\u2019d have meals. But all of a sudden she disappeared and it was off. But he was infatuated with her for at least two years. And I got a lot more \u2013<\/p>\n

Marcia Feakes: She led him on, and got all of her landscaping done, and he thought he was going to marry her. I mean really \u2013<\/p>\n

Ted Porter: He did, he thought he was going to marry her, but she had other ideas. She wanted her lawn mowed anyway [laughter]. Well as far as the dump was concerned, that was a big thing with him, and you didn\u2019t call it \u201cthe dump,\u201d you called it the \u201cdisposal area.\u201d And he picked the spot for it, that field going down, with the brook at the bottom, never thinking that that leach would run into the brook. And that\u2019s why they closed it, because it was in a poor place. But he would tell about it \u2013 he\u2019d stop into Liston\u2019s a lot of times, and he\u2019d talk about it. And he worked a lot of hours up there, he sorted stuff that he really didn\u2019t have to. And he said he was so tired that he\u2019d fall asleep walking back to the Town Hall. And one night he fell asleep and he found himself up by the golf course. He\u2019d gone down Ridge Road instead of [Routes] 112 and 143. And somebody said, \u201cWell, hope you don\u2019t fall asleep and stay asleep or you\u2019ll end up down in Huntington.\u201d [laughter] But I had a different thought of Emmy \u2013 he hired kids, and he hired me when he put in the foundation of the Brewsters\u2019 stone. He tended to the Brewsters\u2019 lawn, which was in the center of town down there. Of course Judge Brewster, Elisha Brewster, was a former judge, and he wanted things done just right, so he wanted the foundation put in for his monument. So Emmy dug the hole, and he formed it up. I was fourteen years old at the time. He got me to fix the cement and pass it down to him. And he worked in that hole for two days, because each stone had to be a certain place, certain side up, and be tamped in. And two weeks later, when he took the forms off \u2013 he wouldn\u2019t take them off too quick \u2013 we looked at it, and it was perfect. With most people who do cement work there\u2019s a void here, and a void there, but this was perfect. And they put this big stone \u2013 the Brewster stone is a big stone \u2013 and today it\u2019s just as true as the day that they put the stone on.<\/p>\n

\"Profile<\/a>
1968 profile of Emerson Davis.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Diane Brenner: Where\u2019s the stone?<\/p>\n

Ted Porter: Center Cemetery. Well then, seeing we\u2019re on cemeteries, the town had a grant \u2013 I think it was $13,000 for someone to study the cemeteries, what we should do, this, that, and the other. And it was these two girls, they came up and did it. And they were really bright and they really did a good job. They knew exactly who was buried where, and they did it with computers. And so when we went up to the North yard \u2013 they asked me to go up there with them \u2013 they said \u201cIt looks like there was a vault there.\u201d And I said that there was. \u201cWell what happened to it?\u201d \u201cWell,\u201d I said, \u201cEmmy Davis tore it down.\u201d \u201cEmmy Davis tore it down, who\u2019s Emmy Davis?\u201d So I said, \u201cWell he was the custodian of the cemetery.\u201d And I said, \u201cOne corner had fallen in a bit, and at that time, Henry Schneider wanted some wall stone. So Emerson tore the back of the vault down.\u201d And they said, \u201cWell who\u2019s Henry Schneider?\u201d I said, \u201cYou didn\u2019t know Henry Schneider?\u201d [laughter] He was the chairman of the board of selectmen, he was the chief of police, he was an assessor. He was the town man, and if he wanted stone, nobody said anything about it. So he got his stone. I\u2019m not sure they all went there, but they were nice stone. These girls said that never should have been torn down. That was one of the showplaces. There\u2019s also one at the Brewster cemetery in Worthington. It never should have been torn down, but it was, and I suppose now the average person doesn\u2019t even know the difference.<\/p>\n

?: Where is he buried?<\/p>\n

\"Worthington<\/a>
Worthington officers portrayed in the Daily Hampshire Gazette,<\/i> February 5, 1966.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ted Porter: Emerson is buried right as you go in the upper driveway of the North Cemetery. And on the right is a big oak tree, and that was his lot. Well, he was going to be buried there, and he decided, \u201cUh-uh, I don\u2019t want anybody to disturb the roots of that tree.\u201d So he was cremated, and he\u2019s got just a little stone, I was up there yesterday. Just a little stone that\u2019s his name and date of birth and \u2013<\/p>\n

?: I\u2019ll have to see that.<\/p>\n

Ted Porter: Now I\u2019ll let somebody else go. I got a lot more, but \u2013<\/p>\n

[various people]: No, no, keep going.<\/p>\n

Ted Porter: There\u2019s a lot of other things. To get back to the Town Hall, what Bam was talking about \u2013 it was before the addition was built on the back of Town Hall, and that chimney was exposed. It\u2019s a fieldstone chimney. And he had a certain place he hid the key. Well I\u2019d go, get the key, open the door, go in, put the key back in place, and he\u2019d come \u2013 \u201cHow\u2019d you get in here?\u201d I said, \u201cGee, the door was open.\u201d [laughter] And he finally got on to me, but he was sure that we didn\u2019t do any damage or anything like that.<\/p>\n

Warren Packard: I always thought he left that key so we could find it [laughter]. He didn\u2019t hide it very well.<\/p>\n

Ted Porter: No, no, it wasn\u2019t hidden very well, and we knew where it was of course. But he was custodian of the church also for a little while, and he evidently didn\u2019t feel right about not being dressed up to go into church. I was bellringer, and he also rang the bell. He would just open the door a crack and put a little chair up there and sit there and listen to the sermon only, and the rest of the time he\u2019d take off. He was interested in what was going on.<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: Apparently he earned money for much of the work that he did for the town but he didn\u2019t collect it, he wouldn\u2019t take the money.<\/p>\n

Ted Porter: He never had much money.<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: Right, but not because it wasn\u2019t offered to him entirely.<\/p>\n

Ted Porter: There were quite a few people that used to buy him sandwiches and soda up at Liston\u2019s when he walked back. And he had a checking account at one time, and he\u2019d leave his checkbook around. Well, this fellow from town decided he needed some of the money, so he wrote a check out to himself and he signed Emerson\u2019s name, but it was E-m-m-e-t-t, Emmett [laughter]. It never got cashed. And it was handled in town, it never went to court or anything like that. Now that would be a big deal today, they\u2019d have the cops up looking. But everything was handled right in town, everybody was happy.<\/p>\n

Pat Kennedy: Ted, can I ask you another question? Did he ever talk about being a conscientious objector? Did he have a reaction to the Vietnam War or anything?<\/p>\n

Ted Porter: No, he didn\u2019t want to talk about that. And another thing, I think he regretted that he didn\u2019t take better care of his mother. Because he told me that they were going to put that stone up. He got people to say they\u2019d help him put that stone that\u2019s there now, and dedicate that to his mother. And he just walked away from the place. I went there when it was in disrepair; there were porcupines living in it, the roof had collapsed. But it was a nice little spot up in there. But he never went back. They took the stove out of it and it went to people in town, that was the only thing of any value.<\/p>\n

Warren Packard: Can I come back in again?<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: Please.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The dump is officially renamed the “Disposal Area,” as reported in The Springfield Union,<\/i> February 5, 1955.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Warren Packard: While we\u2019re on his place over there on Dingle Road, we talked about his separating the trash. You had to call it the \u201cdisposal area\u201d \u2013 he would get quite angry if somebody called it \u201cthe dump.\u201d More that once I heard him really lay people out because they called it \u201cthe dump.\u201d But across the road he used to make gravel. I don\u2019t know if you\u2019re aware of that, but he redirected the small streams \u2013 always of course in the hardest rainstorm. He would spend hours<\/i> out there, sometimes two or three days redirecting little streams coming down the hill toward that brook that Ted mentioned, so that the streams would take the loam and the soft part of the dirt away, and leave the gravel, which he sold some of then to the town. You were wondering where his money came from; he made a little bit of money for that, and he sold it to some other people. And then he got paid for the landscaping and lawn care work that he did, so he earned a little bit of money in addition to what people gave him. But he was so far ahead of his time. Nobody even knew the word \u201cecology\u201d when Emmy was already doing this sort of thing at the landfill, his treatment of the land. And his diet \u2013 all you mentioned was his raw hamburger, but he ate a number of very healthful things. He really lived on milk. He drank milk straight out of \u2013 in those days it was a quart bottle. That was his basic dietary food, but he ate a few potato chips, because he needed the salt, because he was perspiring so much from the work he did. He ate those, crackers. But in the store, as you say, he would just get, say, a quarter of a pound or half a pound of raw hamburger and eat that. In those days that was not extraordinary at all. Today we think that\u2019s crazy, but steak tartare was quite popular in those days, so it was no big deal. So he ate well, he never ate junk food, we never saw him drink Coke, we never saw him eat a candy bar. He ate only good foods. So he was way ahead of the average person in a health sense at that time as well.<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: Did he drink alcohol?<\/p>\n

Warren Packard: I never knew him to drink alcohol.<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: I know he didn\u2019t smoke.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
An early notice of Emmy’s decorating skills in the Springfield Daily Republican<\/i>, May 12, 1932.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ted Porter: The only time that I ever heard he drank alcohol was when the Rod and Gun Club had a contest about who would get the biggest deer, and then they\u2019d go and they\u2019d have a party afterwards. And one day he came and his ear was all roughed up. And I asked him, \u201cWhat\u2019s the matter?\u201d \u201cWell,\u201d he said, \u201cthey took me home and I couldn\u2019t find my way in just back, so I followed the wall around and I rubbed my ear on\u2026\u201d [laughter] And in 1951, when they had the graduation at the Russell Conwell school down there, my sister was in eighth grade and she graduated. Well, Emmy was at the Town Hall decorating, and he did a great job decorating the Town Hall. And my folks felt sorry for him. So my mother said to my father, \u201cI just cooked a chicken dinner, will you take some up to Emmy?\u201d He said, \u201cSure.\u201d So she got it all ready on a plate, and it was good \u2013 a chicken dinner, and it was stuffing and vegetable and potato. And then she had a little pitcher of gravy. So my father took it up and set it down, and he said, \u201cEmerson, you might as well eat this now while it\u2019s hot.\u201d He comes over and looks at it, he grabs that pitcher of gravy, and he drinks [laughter]. My father said, \u201cWell that was to go on top of this.\u201d He says, \u201cIt\u2019s all just the same nutrition.\u201d He wasn\u2019t fussy about that.<\/p>\n

\"Notice<\/a>
Notice of Emmy’s church decorations in The Berkshire Eagle,<\/i> April 5, 1947.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Deen Nugent: He would decorate a bridal shower, or a wedding, or whatever was going to happen at Town Hall. And I don\u2019t think we ever had to pay rent to use the Town Hall, did we?<\/p>\n

Ted Porter: No, not as far as I know, there was no \u2013<\/p>\n

Deen Nugent: But Emmy would climb up on this really tall ladder, and today it would give you the willies thinking about it, but he would take these streamers from the center of the ceiling. He was a perfectionist I think, and he would have the ceiling all beautifully decorated with a bell hanging down, and it was just really something. But he\u2019d always do it, he would decorate, whatever function was going to be there.<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: I got a call from Jeanette Horton. She couldn\u2019t be here today, and she said that her memory is exactly that, that he decorated for her wedding reception. As a kid she had hung out at the Town Hall, and she particularly remembered the square dances, and that they became friends. She was from Huntington, and Jack, who she was marrying, was from Pittsfield. And they decided that the best place for them to have the reception was at the Worthington Town Hall, because that\u2019s where she felt most comfortable. And he insisted on doing all the decorations for cost \u2013 which might have been a lot, as Marcia said, because he had expensive taste. And she\u2019s ever grateful. She remembers him always being in shorts, but I have photographs, and in the few photographs I have he\u2019s not in shorts at all. And [she remembers] him as being just very, very artistic, that was her primary memory. But she didn\u2019t have any pictures of her wedding reception.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Berkshire Eagle,<\/i> September 15, 1963.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ted Porter: His footwear was almost always rubber boots.<\/p>\n

Joan Hicks: Could I ask a question?<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: Please, this is free.<\/p>\n

Joan Hicks: You said he was artistic, did he ever do anything like painting?<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: Well presumably \u2013 he studied art a little bit. I don\u2019t know, I hear that he did. Peter McLean said he did some sculpture, but I don\u2019t know. I know he did stonework \u2013 I understand he did the fountain here in the center of town. Does anybody know if that\u2019s \u2013<\/p>\n

?: The drinking fountain.<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner. Yes. And probably other stonework. When he was younger apparently he painted, and studied art. Jim [Dodge], do you know anything about that aspect of his life?<\/p>\n

Jim Dodge: I don\u2019t think he had any paintings that were ever exhibited or anything.<\/p>\n

\"Disposal<\/a>
Disposal area regulations as reported in The Springfield Union,<\/i> August 1955.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ted Claydon: You know something, I don\u2019t think anybody\u2019s talking about Emmy and the disposal. I think that\u2019s where myself, and the majority of all the people here remember Emmy, because that was an experience every time you went there. He was very strict about where things went \u2013 I think Ted [Porter] mentioned that. But my introduction \u2013 I guess it was 1967. I bought my place and I was young and eager, and I was tearing back the ell, the big two-story ell in the back of my house. My son and I were taking it down and of course there was all this old lumber. And I got a load of lumber and I found out where the dump-disposal was, and I went over there, and Emmy wasn\u2019t there. So I asked this fellow that was doing some road-grading there, I said, \u201cWhere do I put this old lumber?\u201d And he said, \u201cWell, don\u2019t make no never mind to me.\u201d So I said, \u201cOh, that\u2019s a big help.\u201d Anyway, I guess Jerri Bunce was tearing the ell off the back of her house at the same time. You know Jerrilee Cain, [her last name] was Bunce. And there was a guy there tearing it off, and he\u2019d been down [at the disposal area], and he had dumped some lumber down about where I thought it should be. So I figured, \u201cWell, that must be the place.\u201d So I unload this load of lumber \u2013 it was a lot of it, and he wasn\u2019t there. Went back home to get another load, and got another load and came down there, and Emmy is there. And he\u2019s mad, because it\u2019s all caught fire. So here\u2019s this pile of lumber burning, and he\u2019s yelling. He sees me, he says, \u201cWhat idiot did that?\u201d [laughter] And I said, \u201cMe.\u201d I said, \u201cI didn\u2019t know where to put it, so I saw somebody else put stuff\u2026\u201d and so forth and so on. \u201cDon\u2019t you know the burnables go over there?\u201d Well, he had moved where they were going to put the burnables the day before, and didn\u2019t tell us about it. And so he\u2019s yelling at me, and in the meantime, this thing\u2019s burning pretty good. And then he turns around and he says to me, \u201cYou see that pine tree in back?\u201d This is just in back of where it was burning, about a thirty-, forty-foot pine tree back there. He says, \u201cYou see that pine tree? I wouldn\u2019t take five hundred dollars for that tree.\u201d Just about that time the fire hit it. Whoosh<\/i>, like this, it was gone. And I retreated, and I think Emmy and I were kind of tentative for quite a while [laughter]. But wound up good friends. I have lots of other stories, but I won\u2019t bore you with all that stuff. We wound up good friends anyway, and as I say, he was one of the first conservationists that you\u2019ll find. He used to flatten tin cans. And you never went there and threw anything over the bank, because you had to look first, because chances are he was down there and you\u2019d throw it on top of him [laughter]. So he was definitely one of a kind. It was a pleasure and an experience to know that man, because there aren\u2019t too many of them left. I think I\u2019m getting into that stage [laughter]. But he was really, really an asset to this town, and I think everybody that knew him appreciated him. And nobody ever complained, or thought there was anything wrong with what he did, or what he set up, or how he did it. You might not like it but he went ahead and did it. So my hat\u2019s off to him, he was a great guy, he really was.<\/p>\n

\"Profile<\/a>
Profile of Emerson Davis in the Daily Hampshire Gazette,<\/i> March 25, 1971.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dottie Fitzgerald: I\u2019d like to ask, what kind of a voice did he have?<\/p>\n

[several people start imitating Emmy at once]<\/p>\n

?: He had a whiny voice \u2013 [imitating Emmy] \u201cWhy don\u2019t you put that over there.\u201d [laughter]<\/p>\n

Dottie Fitzgerald: I needed to hear his voice to go with his face.<\/p>\n

Ted Claydon: When he got excited it wasn\u2019t great [laughter].<\/p>\n

Dottie Fitzgerald: Was his vocabulary okay?<\/p>\n

Ted Claydon: Oh yeah, oh yeah. I\u2019ve got to give you one more thing. This is again when we first moved up here, and my wife and my daughter used to ride around in the evening on various roads to see where things went, and so forth. And they were out one night, and a couple of guys started following them. So my wife didn\u2019t know where to go. She was back in that end of town, so she drives down to the dump and Emmy\u2019s down there. And she said, \u201cThese men are following me.\u201d He said, \u201cThey\u2019re obviously intoxicated.\u201d [laughter]<\/p>\n

Warren Packard: I never heard him use profanity, though, did you, Ted?<\/p>\n

Ted Claydon: No, never, never.<\/p>\n

Warren Packard: He had a fine vocabulary.<\/p>\n

\"1964<\/a>
1964 portrait of Emerson Davis by George W. Humphrey.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ted Porter: He used to referee basketball games when we went over from the school to play basketball at recess. Remember he refereed occasionally? Oh, and by the way, Emerson was always shooting foul shots. With Mr. Albert \u2013 A. E. Albert \u2013 that would be Ben\u2019s father. And I was up there with him one day, and I wasn\u2019t doing too well [at foul shots]. And he says, \u201cYou know, there\u2019s only three people in town that I consider competition when I\u2019m shooting foul shots \u2013 Bam Packard, Ellie DuCharme [spelling?], and A. E. Albert.\u201d They were up at the top of the basketball shooting, along with him. He played on a team when he was a youngster, but back then basketball was a lot different \u2013 you had your position, and you threw it back, and finally somebody would shoot. It\u2019s nothing like it is now, on the move, you know. But he had his perfected way that he\u2019d shoot the foul shot.<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: Did he have any special friends?<\/p>\n

Ted Porter: Well, I think everybody. I don\u2019t think anybody hated him, really.<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: But I mean anyone he was specially \u2013<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Berkshire Eagle,<\/i> June 3, 1969.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ted Porter: Well, he was at Schneider\u2019s a lot. And Henry would take him for a haircut when he was running the mail, and Eva would give him food. And he was there quite a little.<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: He seemed to have been friends with the Humphreys as well. The drawing up there is a Humphrey \u2013<\/p>\n

Ted Porter: What Humphrey was that?<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: George. And he did a lot of decorating for their ballet performances. I don\u2019t know, it just seemed that that was a name that came up fairly frequently.<\/p>\n

Ted Porter: I thought the Humphreys were later than he was.<\/p>\n

?: No, they were here in the \u201960s and \u201970s.<\/p>\n

Julia Sharron: Jean Humphrey used to have her ballet classes and a yearly performance at the Town Hall, and Emmy did take care of decorating. He\u2019d have beautiful plants all over, and it was really very nicely done.<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: And lighting as well, he did lighting.<\/p>\n

Julia Sharron: Yes.<\/p>\n

\"1968-BeardContest\"<\/a>
The beard contest of 1968.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Helen Sharron Pollard: Can I ask a question about the beard-growing contest in 1968 for our bicentennial? Because we\u2019re coming on 250 years, and I\u2019m just wondering: What was the impetus behind that? Nobody here was growing a beard then, were they?<\/p>\n

Ted Porter: In one of the history books there\u2019s a picture of all the people. And there was some controversy about that. They said the judges weren\u2019t fair [laughter]. But that\u2019s the way things go in a little town. But as far as I know, he had a lot of beard. In fact he had a beard most of the time.<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: Yes, I think he started having a beard quite young.<\/p>\n

Ben Brown: Did he win?<\/p>\n

\"Another<\/a>
Another look at the beard contest in the Springfield Republican<\/i>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Evan Johnson: He was one of two winners according to the picture over here.<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: So how many people here actually knew him?<\/p>\n

[most people in the room raise their hands]<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: Wow, that\u2019s a lot.<\/p>\n

Steve Kulik: You know Bam mentioned milk, and many people mentioned the raw hamburger. And we moved here in \u201976 \u2013<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: Who are you?<\/p>\n

Steve Kulik: Steve Kulik.<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: Thank you.<\/p>\n

Steve Kulik: And so we experienced a couple years of the disposal. I can\u2019t remember when he stopped doing that, but you\u2019d go up there on Saturday in summer, and he\u2019d have his little piece of meat, and butcher paper that he got at the store. And I can remember a quart carton of buttermilk \u2013 he drank buttermilk a lot, and it would just be out there in the sun, you know [laughter]. He didn\u2019t have a cooler or anything like that, and every now and then he\u2019d take a break and have a little snack and a slug of buttermilk. It left an impression on me for sure.<\/p>\n

Suzanne Kulik: I\u2019m Suzie Kulik, and our enduring memory is \u2013 you know we moved here from the city, had no idea what we were getting into. I knew we were supposed to take our trash to the disposal. We had a cat; I carefully put the cat food in a Triscuit box, got to the disposal, and here is this guy who\u2019s dumping the cat food out of the Triscuit box \u2013 [laughter]<\/p>\n

?: And of course flattening the Triscuit box [laughter].<\/p>\n

Steve Kulik: The other thing I remember, there was a really nice party for Emmy after I think he was down at the nursing home. It was a birthday party, I think, at Town Hall, and a lot of people showed up. There\u2019s probably an article here about it or something. But that was a really wonderful party, and at that point I sort of remember he didn\u2019t see very well, he didn\u2019t hear very well. But there must have been a hundred people there, and it was just really a nice event.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Boston Globe,<\/i> January 27, 1973.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ginger Donovan: I can remember \u2013 [identifying herself] Ginger Donovan \u2013 I can remember walking on a Saturday morning, as Steve was saying, and Emmy would be up there fixing his breakfast, and even had his carton of milk there, and what I thought was cereal of some sort \u2013 it was probably crushed crackers. But he would put a raw egg on top of those crackers and then drink the milk up [laughter].<\/p>\n

Michelle Dodge: This is back to the disposal again \u2013 Jim and I had the same experience as a lot of people that moved here in the \u201970s, in that we also took part of our house to the disposal area. And I remember backing up, and it was very difficult to miss him because all of the sudden these orange gloves would pop up. And you knew he was down below because \u2013<\/p>\n

Jim Dodge: That\u2019s where he worked.<\/p>\n

Michelle Dodge: \u2013 you could see the orange gloves.<\/p>\n

\"Emmy<\/a>
Emmy Davis, 1975.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Elodi McBride: I have something to add to that. Again, like many of us, my family moved up [to Worthington] in 1970. I was eighteen, and I grew up in a small town, so we had a dump, but \u2013 it was a novelty. And I can remember hearing this man, not really cursing, but kind of muttering so you didn\u2019t really understand him, with a giant potato hook, ripping apart plastic bags \u2013 very<\/i> unhappy about plastic bags, he did not care for those inventions. And at that time my parents were renovating the barn, and it had all caved in, and so we had a beer party. And Ron [McBride] and several college mates came up and we cleaned out that end of the barn that had dropped from the roof all the way down into the basement. And we took over ten dumptruck loads of debris, of all various wood materials. And we had pre-arranged with Emmy, because we knew you had a certain place, and we had to go down on the lower<\/i> road that he had specially plowed for us, so that we could start dumping all the way at the far end, and just keep dumping in succession until we filled all that area up for him. And the funniest thing I remember is that \u2013 Ron and I were dating at that time, and I can remember going up some Saturday morning and just talking to him about whatever, and he looked at us and he said, \u201cDon\u2019t trust anybody over thirty.\u201d [laughter] It just astounded me, but you know, we took it for what it was worth. He was just fun \u2013 he talked to you, he never put you down for what you said, and if he didn\u2019t agree with you, he\u2019d kind of say, \u201cWell, hmm\u2026\u201d and then, \u201cThis is how it should be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ted Claydon: Did anybody remember the lagoon? Remember when he had the lagoon down there? It was rainwater that filled in this hole. And I remember John Medesto was down there and I was coming down \u2013 he waves at the window and says, \u201cStop, stop, stop.\u201d So I stop and said, \u201cWhat\u2019s the matter?\u201d He said, \u201cFor Pete\u2019s sake, go clockwise.\u201d [laughter] You had to go around this thing to get out. He said, \u201cI went counter-clockwise and he raised all kinds of Cain.\u201d [laughter]<\/p>\n

\"Emmy<\/a>
Emmy at the disposal area, 1975.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Pete Thomson: I\u2019m Pete Thomson, and I worked for Emmy. And I know Ben Brown did. I was wondering who else did, way back. Ted Porter. Ernie Nugent worked up there. Well, on the lagoon, at the disposal area, it was actually a solar evaporator, which put Emerson ahead of his time. I came to town I think in about \u201968, but I\u2019d gone to Gateway [Regional High School] so I had friends that I knew in town, and I\u2019d heard of Emmy. But I didn\u2019t really get to know him or work part-time for him until \u2013 oh, probably about \u201974. Worked for him part-time on weekends or whatever, just because he was such an interesting character. It was about the lowest-paying job you could find in town at the time, but<\/i> you got to hang around Emmy. And the sort of disappointing part on that sometimes is, he\u2019d get you going on something and he\u2019d just be out at the Town Hall, so there you were by yourself, doing whatever. Yeah, the solar pond; at some point the state stopped outside burnings. Demolition material like barns and stuff, and just general trash, used to be burnt over a bank. And through the EPA or whatever, they eliminated that and went to what they call \u201csanitary landfills.\u201d And that meant that it had to be covered up weekly, like with a foot of clean fill, which pretty much came from Donovan\u2019s. I think the hours for the disposal area became like Saturday and maybe Wednesday, or something like that. And there were no stickers, no tickets, no bag fee or anything. And it wasn\u2019t mandatory that you sorted your trash, but things like bottles and cans and milk cartons would go in an area, and then it was Donovan\u2019s that would come up once a week and they would crush it. And some people thought, \u201cWell isn\u2019t that a waste of time, why separate that?\u201d And he\u2019d just simply explain, \u201cWell you take a Coke bottle, dig a hole nine inches down, and run over it with anything you can come up with, and you\u2019re still going to have a Coke bottle \u2013 you\u2019re burying air.\u201d So it wasn\u2019t to separate the metal like they do it now, or the glass \u2013 it was just to decrease the volume. I think he even did that before, when they were still burning. Maybe I was just a visitor at the time; I\u2019m not sure when they went away from burning. But that was the reason for that. The solar collector was made so that [imitating Emmy] \u201cAll the water that falls on this place will remain here.\u201d It would evaporate, so it was to keep it from going over the bank. And a couple of other things: the little circle around the lagoon, like clockwise, counter-clockwise \u2013 [imitating Emmy] \u201cWhere you from, England, driving in the wrong direction?\u201d [laughter] On food, I think Judy maybe can back this up, I think he ate Cheerios.<\/p>\n

Ben Brown: Wheaties.<\/p>\n

Pete Thomson: Wheaties, wheaties. I know he had some sort of cereal at the Town Hall. And a couple of other things: He said he didn\u2019t need a car because he had 75 chauffeurs. And he got back and forth between the disposal area and the Town Hall. The Hoosac Tunnel \u2013 I think one of his uncles was an engineer or something on that project. That project was \u2013 pshew! \u2013 175 people or whatever over like a 20-, 25-year period. But one of his uncles was an engineer, and he had relatives that were architects, in the Adams area. I think one of them was involved with either like a town hall, or a courthouse, in either Adams or \u2013<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Berkshire Eagle,<\/i> February 17, 1973.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Diane Brenner: His father [Raymond Harrison Davis] had designed the doors for North Adams \u2013<\/p>\n

Pete Thomson: I think they were involved in more than just the doors and stuff \u2013<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: But he was an architect, I believe.<\/p>\n

Pete Thomson: One relative ran what I guess you\u2019d call a lumberyard or something, but they used to manufacture windows. You didn\u2019t go to Anderson, or you didn\u2019t go to Cummington Supply and get your windows from Virginia or somewhere. They were made locally. Emmy would complain \u2013 somebody [mentioned] new materials, plastic and stuff. When that first started coming out \u2013 the cardboard boxes with the styrofoam corners on your TV set \u2013 that freaked him out [laughter]. He said, \u201cWhat!?\u201d He said, \u201cMost businesses should go out of business.\u201d Because he couldn\u2019t crush them, he couldn\u2019t burn them, and he just had to bury them. But anyway, back to the building supply thing. He said, \u201cBack in the old days, they\u2019d take a truck, have an order for windows up in Savoy or something, coming out of Adams or Cheshire or whatever, and they\u2019d wrap them all in these shipping blankets. And they would load the truck with all the windows. When they delivered them, they would fold up all the blankets and they\u2019d use them over and over and over again. Now you get a one-way box for your TV or your windows, and the cardboard and all the dunnage \u2013 [that\u2019s] what you call it in the shipping business \u2013 just goes in the landfill. That\u2019s why he would flatten the boxes. If he took a box and I jumped on it, it wouldn\u2019t be flat. But you learn to take a standard box, you find one corner and that\u2019s where it\u2019s got a seam. You don\u2019t need a box knife; it\u2019s sort of like ripping a phone book in half. And you can pop it, then you can lay it flat. He would sort of estimate how much trash he was going to get. He would build these little walls out of cardboard boxes; it was sort of a crate for a lot of cardboard boxes, because if the trash got higher than the little wall you were building that they were going to cover on Monday or Tuesday, you were over the bank. And then he would tamp down; he\u2019d put the boxes down, he\u2019d walk back and forth, just like if you were tamping a road. So that\u2019s a little about why things were sorted, and the solar thing.<\/p>\n

Helen Sharron Pollard: Can I just suggest, Pete \u2013 it looks like people are getting a little hot, what if we took a ten-, fifteen-minute break, had a little drink?<\/p>\n

Jim Dodge: I want to say one thing. Over the years I watched certain people take care of Emmy. And Mrs. Liston would give him a bowl of soup on a cold day, and Bill Wilson would give him a ride up the road \u2013 a lot of people did. Pete Packard would work on the Glen Grove Sanctuary board and committee we had. But in his last weeks, it was Julia Sharron who really made sure he was taken care of. And I want to thank Julia for her efforts at that time, because everybody in town cared about Emmy, and his last days were much better. [applause]<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Springfield Union,<\/i> July 8, 1978.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At this point everyone took a break and enjoyed the layout of snack foods, ice cream, cake, iced tea and sangria. After the break, Willie Brown and Diana Noble, whose band is called EarthRiders, started off the second half with a performance of Willie\u2019s composition \u201cEmerson Davis.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

Willie Brown: This is my lovely and able assistant, Diana Noble. And we have a song we\u2019d like to play, written especially for this day.<\/p>\n

Diana Noble: Twenty years ago.<\/p>\n

Willie Brown: Twenty years ago [laughter].<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: It\u2019s been a long time coming, I guess.<\/p>\n

Willie Brown: Originally because I thought that \u201cEmerson Davis\u201d was sort of a lyrical-sounding name, but of course no one has been more deserving of a song than Emerson Davis.<\/p>\n

Diane Noble: Will told me that his mom [Lois Ashe Brown] used to be one of the taxi drivers; Will was a little boy in the back seat, and when Emmy needed to get somewhere, Lois took him. And it\u2019s funny because all the stories [we\u2019ve heard tonight] are like all wrapped up in the song.<\/p>\n

Willie Brown: You might think I wrote it after listening to today\u2019s discusssion, but it\u2019s not true. But I have enough fodder for a third and a fourth verse now. So this is called \u201cEmerson Davis.\u201d<\/p>\n

[Music begins; click below\u00a0to hear the performance.]<\/p>\n

“Emerson Davis”<\/a><\/p>\n

When I was a kid growin\u2019 up in town,
\nthere was a pretty cool man around.
\nHe worked at the dump most every day,
\nbut if you call it \u201cthe disposal\u201d he’d prefer it that way.
\nAt night he would sleep in the Town Hall,
\nand that\u2019s where we go to play basketball.
\nSleepin\u2019 on a table up on the stage,
\nhis only blanket was a newspaper page.
\nAnd we weren\u2019t sure if he was asleep or dead,
\nbut sometimes a ball would hit him in the head.
\nAnd he would awake long enough to say,
\n\u201cIf you can\u2019t control the ball you won\u2019t be able to play!\u201d
\nEmerson Davis [x3]
\nEmmy Davis was his name.
\nEmerson Davis [x4]
\nHis sneakers were Converse All-Stars,
\non the bench at lunch he ate his hamburger raw.
\nHe washed it down with a Peppermint Pattie,
\nhe smelled pretty bad and his clothes were ratty.
\nBut Emmy Davis loved this little town,
\nWorthington was sacred ground.
\nIf you\u2019re in the Town Hall late at night,
\nand you hear a noise or catch a sight,
\nkeep it down, that\u2019s my request,
\nit\u2019s only Emmy tryin\u2019 to get some rest.
\nEmerson Davis [x3]
\nEmmy Davis was his name.
\nEmerson Davis [x8]<\/p>\n

[applause]<\/p>\n

Willie Brown: And this event is long overdue. If this is the first memorial for Emerson, this is a wonderful thing, long overdue.<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: Thank you. [applause]<\/p>\n

Willie Brown: And I\u2019ll listen carefully and I\u2019ll have enough material for two more verses [laughter]. Thank you all.<\/p>\n

Helen Sharron Pollard: That was great, thank you very much. Can we turn the floor back over to Pete? Because he was really starting to get rolling.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Berkshire Eagle,<\/i> November 21, 1977.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Pete Thomson: Back to the disposal area, I think I sort of left off with Emerson not liking styrofoam and the new packaging that came out. And somebody asked earlier, how did the disposal area come to be? Well, I\u2019d asked Emerson about that. I don\u2019t know what year he started it, but he said there was a problem in town, that there wasn\u2019t a central place to get rid of trash, anything from building material to bedframes. And people used to just throw it behind the barn or whatever, the bottle pile or the can pile. So at some point he sort of took it upon himself. I don\u2019t know when this was, like if it was in the \u201940s or the \u201950s or whenever he started the disposal area. And they used to burn trash, and burn as much as they could. And he started running it. The other change was when they didn\u2019t allow you to burn anymore; they came up with this mandate where it had to be buried once a week. That became very expensive, and that was the reason for reducing the volume, because the less fill you had to bring in, the cheaper it was. And it also involved getting a [bull]dozer from Donovan\u2019s every other week or whatever to come up there. And all the towns were facing the same dilemma, like Cummington. Everybody was running out of space, without another site. So the town finally went to a compactor like all the other towns had done. But one thing about the landfill \u2013 I said, \u201cWell what are you going to do?\u201d He says, \u201cWell it\u2019s a sanctuary\u201d or whatever. He says, \u201cWell I\u2019m going to put a ball park here.\u201d I said, \u201cEmmy, you know this isn\u2019t big enough.\u201d The solar evaporator had been filled in at some point, and it was all leveled off. And he says, \u201cSo I\u2019m going to put a ball park here.\u201d And I said, \u201cEmmy, this isn\u2019t big enough.\u201d I\u2019ll get to one more remembrance there. I said there weren\u2019t any stickers or whatever. There was a group that had a cabin up in Peru \u2013 they had like a hunting place or summer place, and they used to go up there and party. They were connected with Ferrara Spring [Works], which is a truck spring big machine automotive industrial truck place. And they had a place in Peru, and they would go up there hunting and stuff. They had a piano they were trying to get rid of, and they brought it down to the sort of flat area where I think the tin cans and stuff went; they set it up and they just put it there. They had a pretty good pickup truck with a hydraulic tailgate to get it off; three or four of them came up. And they left it and said, \u201cWell jeez, we hate to throw it out, but somebody gave us this better piano.\u201d And this one guy \u2013 can\u2019t recall his name \u2013 was the piano player. So there\u2019s this flat area out in the middle of nowhere, and this guy\u2019s playing the piano. And it was nice weather, it wasn\u2019t going to get rained on. But I wished I had a photo of it, because if I tell the story, it\u2019s hard to believe that it really happened. \u201cSo there\u2019s this guy in the middle of the woods, in this field, playing the piano\u2026\u201d Unfortunately the piano got crushed up the following week. A few other things, a jukebox went through there, that didn\u2019t make it. The other thing, back to the ballpark \u2013 they were getting I think ready to cap it off and go to a transfer station. I think there was talk of even putting the transfer station up there at one point. I think I was out of town, because I\u2019d been in and out of town. But I said, \u201cWhere\u2019s the ball park going to go, Emmy, you can\u2019t fit a ball park in there.\u201d There was no way that that little knoll where the rock is, if you\u2019ve ever been up there, could be a ball park. And he said, \u201cMister,\u201d and he pointed off into the sky, and he said, \u201cThat\u2019s my ball park.\u201d I\u2019ll leave it at that.<\/p>\n

\"Emerson<\/a>
Emerson Davis with police chief Dave Tyler, 1966.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Evan Johnson: Jim, tell your story please. [pause] Jim? Aw, c\u2019mon. Can I tell your story?<\/p>\n

Jim Dodge: You can tell it.<\/p>\n

Evan Johnson: I have no idea if this is true, but if it\u2019s not \u2013<\/p>\n

Jim Dodge: That\u2019s why I\u2019m not telling it [laughter].<\/p>\n

Evan Johnson: We came to town in \u201984, so we missed the whole Emmy scene, unfortunately. But early on, I met Jim and he told me about a day when Emmy was at the Town Hall, and if I\u2019m not mistaken it was a COA [Council on Aging] event that was taking place. And it was a hot day, and Emmy had slept without his clothes on. And there were still curtains up on the stage at Town Hall back in those days, and apparently he got up for his morning, and pulled open the curtains, and apparently there was a whole group of COA people in there setting up the tables for the luncheon, and many false teeth were dropped [laughter]. That was always my favorite Emmy story, whether it\u2019s true or not.<\/p>\n

Jim Dodge: They put it in the minutes of the meeting [laughter].<\/p>\n

Steve Kulik: I have a question. Bam and I were talking about this at the break, but he had heard \u2013 many years before I did \u2013 but we both heard that Emmy had studied at the Sorbonne, in Paris. You had mentioned that he had gone to Europe and done art tours and things, and I don\u2019t know if anybody else had heard that story.<\/p>\n

Pete Thomson: What little I know about it, I believe he had two years at Pratt [Institute]. And I got the story \u2013 this is I think how I got it – is that he left \u201cto see the world, and they taught me all they could out of books.\u201d So that\u2019s how he ended up in Europe. What became of that, and where he went after that \u2013 if he returned to Adams and then came to Worthington \u2013 I don\u2019t know. So yeah, he had gone to travel or whatever and study.<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: Right, that\u2019s what\u2019s in the articles, that he studied briefly at Pratt, and he had a mentor, I think who was at Mount Hermon [School], who encouraged him to come down to New York and study, but I\u2019ve never heard that he actually studied at the Sorbonne.<\/p>\n

Suzanne Kulik: He told us once that the climate of Florence was the closest to Worthington [laughter].<\/p>\n

?: Right, he did say that.<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: So can somebody talk a little bit about the current status of the Glen Grove Sanctuary? Who\u2019s on the board?<\/p>\n

\"Dedication<\/a>
Dedication of the Glen Grove Wildlife Sanctuary, as documented in the North Adams Evening Transcript,<\/i> September 6, 1931.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jim Dodge: I\u2019m not sure \u2013<\/p>\n

Pat Kennedy: And is it Glen Cove or Glen Grove?<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: It\u2019s Glen Grove, but in all the Mass Recreation publicity and maps, it\u2019s \u201cGlen Cove.\u201d And if you look at orienteering sites, \u201cGlen Cove.\u201d So that\u2019s one of those mistakes that gets repeated and repeated, but it was originally \u201cGlen Grove.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jim Dodge: After Emmy died, Pete Packard wanted a member of each board in town to be on a board of the sanctuary and meet once a year. And I was on the Conservation Commission at the time, so I became a member of that board. And we\u2019d meet at Pete\u2019s house and have coffee, and have an official meeting, but then we\u2019d go up to the sanctuary. You can walk the parameter, the lines. And Bill Wilson knew where some of them were, and a lot of them we didn\u2019t know where the corner pins were, and we found them. It\u2019s a good piece of land.<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: Yeah, it\u2019s 180 acres on that side, and 50 on the other side.<\/p>\n

Jim Dodge: I mean, we all think that it\u2019s just where the landfill was, and that\u2019s a few acres, but it goes way beyond that.<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: Anybody can go up there?<\/p>\n

Jim Dodge: Yeah, yeah. You wouldn\u2019t know. There\u2019s no trails. But it\u2019s a nice piece of property.<\/p>\n

Helen Sharron Pollard: So what is it?<\/p>\n

Jim Dodge: It\u2019s a forest, it\u2019s a woodlot.<\/p>\n

Helen Sharron Pollard: But is it set aside? Is it a conservation area?<\/p>\n

Julia Sharron: It\u2019s just a wild bird sanctuary.<\/p>\n

Helen Sharron Pollard: Oh, I remember, right.<\/p>\n

Julia Sharron: And as Jim said, we met once a year for many years, to make sure that nothing was dumped illegally there \u2013 a couple of times there were things. Made sure that there was some fencing, and so we honored the property the way it should be. But there was never any money to do anything, you know, extravagant, there. So it\u2019s just kind of an area. But we do have a stone. And that\u2019s it.<\/p>\n

Jim Dodge: But since Pete Packard\u2019s gone, there hasn\u2019t been a meeting.<\/p>\n

Julia Sharron: No, no.<\/p>\n

Evan Johnson: Is there still a board, Jim?<\/p>\n

Jim Dodge: If you\u2019re not on a town board, are you a representative anymore? I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

Julia Sharron: No, no, it had to be a representative of each board.<\/p>\n

?: Is it owned by the town?<\/p>\n

\",<\/a>
The Berkshire Eagle,<\/i> February 17, 1977<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Julia Sharron: Yes, yes.<\/p>\n

Jim Dodge: So the selectmen probably should look into it, there should be at least an annual \u2013<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: And is the memorial boulder to Harriet Davis, his mother, on that property?<\/p>\n

Julia Sharron: No, it\u2019s not.<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: Where is that?<\/p>\n

Julia Sharron: I don\u2019t know where that is.<\/p>\n

Bam Packard: Is it right by the landfill, Julia?<\/p>\n

Julia Sharron: I don\u2019t believe it is.<\/p>\n

Ted Porter: It\u2019s just east of the landfill, going down the road.<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: On the left- or the right-hand side as you go down?<\/p>\n

?: On the right-hand side.<\/p>\n

Willard Brown: There\u2019s still a path mowed to the boulder, I believe.<\/p>\n

Ted Porter: I remember one time they used to mow that out yearly, but I don\u2019t know if they do now.<\/p>\n

Willard Brown: I think they still do. I don\u2019t know who, probably Cork [Donovan].<\/p>\n

Elodi McBride: I have something to add to that. My son Randy took it on as an Eagle project \u2013 I\u2019m trying to remember if it was \u201999. And he and the kids in the neighborhood all played there, that was like their<\/i> territory. And it was never malicious, it was always finding the snakes or whatever, creep up on a bear. Anyway, for his Eagle project he had Ernie [Nugent] as his counselor to pick up some of the debris that had become exposed over the years. And so they organized it, and it was an all-day event. And they cleaned up a bunch of \u2013 just stuff that had popped up, but it was pretty well emptied out anyway. And the kids had a good time, they took a couple of dumptruck loads out to the new disposal and re-dumped the old stuff. But they put a bench up there that I think is still there, I have not been up there. It would be by the boulder? He poured cement and put a chain on it and locked it all up up there. And I don\u2019t think that there was any other plans \u2013 I know Randy himself had to talk to Pete Packard. I don\u2019t know that he went before the board, but Pete spoke for everybody, so \u2013 [laughter]. But I know Randy had contacted him, he learned a little bit about the history and stuff. And like I said, the kids in the neighborhood really felt that that was their playground, really. And they wanted to take care of it and make it more natural and clean it up, and that\u2019s what they ended up doing. And it was not too long after that that the town had to do that \u2013 I forget what that was called \u2013<\/p>\n

Evan Johnson: Kate [Ewald] and I did a site assessment out there, and as a tribute \u2013<\/p>\n

?: Capping.<\/p>\n

Evan Johnson: But this was after the capping, we had to do a site assessment to make sure that the landfill was not something that had to be further cleaned up. And as a tribute to Emmy Davis, the water and the groundwater out there was pristine. So really, he did something right for sure.<\/p>\n

Ginger Donovan: Question: the sanctuary, is that on both sides of the road, or just on the landfill side?<\/p>\n

?: Both sides.<\/p>\n

Ginger Donovan: It is<\/i> both sides. And how many acres?<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: Well 180 on one side, and 50 on the other. So it\u2019s 230. That\u2019s a lot.<\/p>\n

?: Janet, did you have something you wanted to add?<\/p>\n

Janet Dimock: Oh, we were talking about traveling. I remember \u2013 it must have been at Emmy\u2019s memorial service that Doug Small talked about having a conversation with Emmy about all the Easter lilies in the Holy Land. About Emmy being there and seeing them. But I don\u2019t know when he traveled there, if anybody else knows.<\/p>\n

Amanda Emerson: I wish my father could be here, because he knew Emmy Davis. My father was Lawrence Waldo Emerson, and he lived and worked with a Reverend Berkus [spelling?] here? Who also was a farmer, and who I think slaughtered animals? Well anyway, when my father lived here with Reverend Berkus, Emmy was here. And that would probably have been when my father was a teenager, or maybe shortly after he graduated from Smith Vocational school. My father was born in 1919, and he fought in World War II, so it was somewhere before he went to war. But he knew Emmy as a person who worked with his hands, and picked up gravel with a banjo shovel \u2013 whatever that was, I\u2019m not sure \u2013 but wrote poetry. And I knew Emmy. I didn\u2019t know<\/i> Emmy, I met<\/i> Emmy once in a while, when I worked for de Beaumont\u2019s on River Road at Brookstone. Well, we always wondered but we were too polite to ask, was he related to us? And it doesn\u2019t really matter, because he was a credit to the name of Emerson.<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner. He was. And I think he took that name to heart, even if he might not have been a relative.<\/p>\n

?: That was lovely, thank you.<\/p>\n

Amanda: Thank you.<\/p>\n

\"Emmy<\/a>
Emmy Davis.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bam Packard: Has anyone actually seen the poetry that he is rumored to have written? I never saw him write, I didn\u2019t know that he actually wrote poetry, so I wondered if anybody had actually seen it.<\/p>\n

Ben Brown: I wanted to mention that I finally got in touch with Ralph Thompson yesterday, who went on to become Ralph the blacksmith, a lot of people may remember. He was in Worthington in the \u201970s, and he worked for Emerson and became very attached to him. Maybe he was the closest thing Emerson had to a disciple. But he mentioned in our conversation that Emerson was one of the most significant people in his life, because he\u2019s the only man that he ever met that Ralph considered to be living his ideals without the compromises that most of us are obliged to make in a variety of ways. And Ralph really revered Emerson, and worked for him for a long, long time. I can still remember him driving around with a trunk full of tools in a beat-up Falcon doing jitney for Emerson as well as working in the dump \u2013 the disposal<\/i>, excuse me \u2013 [laughter] and maybe sometimes the North Cemetery.<\/p>\n

?: Ben, you were talking about his shorts. Would you describe his shorts?<\/p>\n

Ben Brown: Oh, yeah. So I remember when I was very young he used to mow lawns for some people in the center of town, with the real mower like you were talking about, and he would always wear these very vivid, silk basketball shorts [laughter]. And he often wore those around the Town Hall, too, I can remember that from being a kid.<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: What color? Do you remember what color?<\/p>\n

Ben Brown: Yeah, he had some green ones, I remember. He had several pairs. Probably left by the visiting team [laughter].<\/p>\n

Diane Brenner: Well we really appreciate all of you who came and stayed through this heat, and who contributed. And if you remember things or want to add to what you\u2019ve said or didn\u2019t say, we always really appreciate it. We have our website, you can post a comment there, or you can email me or anybody on the board. Or call, or come by and talk, whatever. We\u2019d like to get as much as we can while we can, and have it available for other people in the future. Okay, well thank you, there\u2019s still some more stuff to eat and drink\u2026<\/p>\n

Several people: Thank you.<\/p>\n

\"1988-annual-report\"<\/a>
Cover of annual report, with dedication inside by Lois Ashe Brown.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Addendum: Further recollections of Emerson Davis<\/strong><\/p>\n

The following accounts of Emerson Davis were given to the WHS in written form.<\/i><\/p>\n

\"Emmy<\/a>
Emmy Davis photographed for the 1956 booklet New England Town Meeting Telephone Style,<\/i> published by the Bell Telephone Company. The caption read, “Assistance of Town Hall custodian Emerson Davis ran the gamut from tacking up posters, setting up tables and chairs to buttonholing townspeople and urging them to attend the Meeting!”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jim Dodge: I first met Emmie when I moved to town and brought a truck load of various things to the town dump. I backed up to a pile of garbage and got out of the truck to unload it. There didn\u2019t seem to be anyone around. As I started unloading stuff someone yelled \u201cTHAT DON\u2019T GO THERE!\u201d It was Emmie and he was mad at me for not putting things in the right places, as he had the dump all managed in to certain areas. I got started on the wrong foot with Mr. Davis but soon learned the wisdom of his ways when it came to where things went at the dump. When Emmie got on in age there were several people who looked after him. Bill Wilson and Mrs. Liston helped him in many ways. Julia Sharron helped Emmie get into a nursing home and made sure that he got the care that he needed. In his will Emmie left his land, which included the town dump and what would be called the Glen Grove Wildlife Sanctuary, to the Town. Pete Packard, our retired postmaster, asked for a member of each town board to also serve on the board of the Glen Grove Wildlife Sanctuary. There was an annual meeting held at Pete\u2019s home and some years we walked the boundary lines of the sanctuary.<\/p>\n

Merrill Bancroft: I have many memories of Emerson Davis although I lived in Chesterfield. I operated a television repair business I called The Electronic Shop in the center of town, and had customers in Worthington. Many times when I was on the road there I would see him walking along the road and would give him a lift. He would usually be heading for the dump. To him it was the disposal area and never the dump. If you called it the dump he would pretend not to know what you were talking about. I found him to be very intelligent which didn\u2019t always reflect his demeanor sometimes. My mother would tell about him at Grange. He had a reputation of being a perfectionist when he decorated the Worthington town hall for weddings and other affairs. He installed the library lawn in Chesterfield and was the quintessence of perfection. Every town needs an Emerson Davis. Emmy made the town his own by living there, working there, and made the town better.<\/p>\n

Posted August 19, 2013.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Introduction by Diane Brenner Emerson Jewett Davis (\u201cEmmy\u201d) was born in North Adams, Massachusetts on February 17, 1888, the sixth child in the Davis family. His father, Raymond Harrison Davis, was a Vermont-born architect\/carpenter; his mother, Harriet Emeline Wilson, was originally from Groton, Massachusetts. Emerson was preceded by Orrin (b. 1876), Ida (1878), Walter (1880), […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdAsoD-eA","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=904"}],"version-history":[{"count":147,"href":"https:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8596,"href":"https:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904\/revisions\/8596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}