David Emerson, 60, son of Earl Lyndon and Frances (Atherton) Emerson, died on Aug. 30, 2009. He was born on March 27, 1949 in North Conway and was raised in Stow, Maine where he attended a one-room school through the fifth grade. His days at the Stow Corner School formed some of his favorite memories and forged friendships that lasted the rest of his life. He moved to Albany in June of 1976, where he remained. He loved New Hampshore, the state of his birth, for its beauty, its politics, and its people.

He is survived by his wife, Susan Bruce; a step-daughter, Jessica LaPlante of Rangeley, Maine; his mother of Fryeburg, Maine; two brothers and their wives, Alvin and Linda, of Stow, Maine, and Guy and Barbara, of Warner; several nieces and nephews and many treasured friends. He loved them all dearly for their unbridled sense of humor and respected them for their kind and caring natures. He will be eternally grateful to his friend, Mark Lapierre, for his physical and emotional support during his final illness, and his "other family," the Hutchins clan.

A memorial service will be held September 16th at the Salyards Center for the Arts, 110 Main St., Conway, NH. Burial will be in the Emerson Cemetery in Stow at the convenience of the family. In lieu of flowers, perform a random act of kindness. Arrangements are made with Wood Funeral Home in Fryeburg, Maine. Online condolences may be expressed to the family at www.woodfuneralhome.org.

David was a modest man reflecting his Maine upbringing. All who knew him remember that he posessed a great sense of humor and loved theater! Therefore, according to David's wishes, a funeral procession will begin at the Conway Public Library at 4 PM on Wednesday, September 16th, including a reuniting of the Umbrella Brigade. Anyone wishing to join the procession is welcome. Services will begin at the Salyards Center for the Arts at approximately 4:30 - following the procession - and last until approximately 5:30 PM. A Potluck will follow on the lower level of the Salyards Center with an informal sharing of "David Stories" and memories. You are invited to bring photographs of David to share.

Remembering David . . .

(the following excerpt is from an article by Tom Eastman
appearing in the Conway Daily Sun, September 2)

Director of the Conway Historical Society and the former director of the Conway Public Library's Henney History Room, author of several books on Conway history, and The Conway Daily Sun's “Seedy Gardener” columnist, Emerson was named the Conway Village Chamber of Commerce's “Citizen of the Year” at its annual dinner in October 2007.
In a rare serious moment at that dinner, he praised a trend in preservation that he had witnessed over the past decade or so.
“It used to be that in Conway, buildings were just torn down, especially in the 1950s and 1960s. But,” said Emerson, “in the last 15 years or so, the region had seen a change in that Conway's older buildings are now being saved and renovated, and converted into new uses.”
An example of one of those new uses, he said, is the old fire station across the street from the Salyards Center. The fire station is now being used by Mountain Top Music Center for classroom space, and the Salyards Center is a former Roman Catholic Church, which was purchased by the Conway Historical Society and converted into the new performing arts center.
At the dinner, former boss Paul Hutchins, a former Conway selectman, recounted what it was like to have Emerson as an employee at Flowerland florist for 18 years. poking fun at Emerson's work habits while praising him overall as a “wonderful human being with a great wit and compassionate heart.”

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As his longtime friend and local Civil War author William R. Marvel wrote in an e-mail this week, “David took with him an incalculable portion of Saco River Valley lore. He owned the two qualities that make a great historian: an impeccable memory, and a sufficiently irreverent view of human nature to understand that the surviving records often don't tell the real story. When people would ask me where their great-grandfather's home or office stood, I could usually tell them, but when they wanted to know who their real great-grandfather was, I sent them to David.
“He was the only person who ever made me feel like an amateur at local history, and he rattled it off in such volume that I missed most of what I might have learned from him. Much of it was the sort of material that is never formally documented, so the loss is immediate and permanent.
“Worst of all,” added Marvel, “there seems to be no one today who has both the skills and the inclination to even pick up where he left off.”
• • •

Margaret Marschner, of Wolfeboro, who retired in June after nearly 30 years at the Conway library, said she worked with Emerson beginning in July 1993 after Ann Cullinan retired from the Henney Room.
“He brought a lot to the post as he was also director of the Conway Historical Society's Eastman-Lord House,” said Marschner Monday. “He knew so many people, and had read so much about local history.”
She praised not only his knowledge, but — like Marvel — his sharp wit, as well as his graciousness in his battle with cancer these past two years.
“He was a very generous and giving person. Before he got sick, he volunteered for a lot of different causes — he worked for Believe in Books, and he also was an elf for the Polar Express,” said Marschner in a phone interview from New Jersey, where she was visiting this week.
Marschner said Emerson shared much of his insider information by hosting Valley Vision Channel 3's “Remember When” program.
“He would have the old-timers on, and he also knew what the things were at the historical society's Eastman-Lord House, and why they were there. He and Thom Steele [former superintendent of the Conway Village Water District] both knew a lot of the local history, would chat all the time. He just was such a close personal friend,” said Marschner.
• • •

Emerson put his wit to work in composing the Conway Historical Society's quarterly newsletters, in which he would make even the most mundane calendar listing sound intriguing — and humorous.
The same held true in his “The Seedy Gardener” column.
In his “Brush up on your plant Latin,” published May 30, 2008, Emerson tackled the value — and shortcomings — of learning that ancient language:
“I don't remember that my high school Latin teacher ever taught me either plant Latin or medical Latin, the two applications that would have been helpful in real life. Instead,” wrote Emerson, “she was quite insistent that I come to the full realization that all Gaul is divided into three parts, a bit of trivia for which I have never found much use. To her credit, I'm pretty sure that she was familiar with the Latin phrase for gin and tonic.
"My French teacher, on the other hand, had some kind of fetish about the pen of her aunt being on the table. I hope that in the intervening years she's reconciled with her wayward relative and resolved the pen faux pas.
"There's very little plant French or medical French with the exception of a few phrases like ‘tic de larue’ and ‘fleur-de-lis.’ Food French would stand the average student much better. It could spare him from eating a snail or something that a pig dug up.
Many gardeners are intimidated by plant Latin, but with a bit of study, it can be both decipherable and helpful. Without Latin taxonomy, ‘ground ivy’ could be any one of a number of invasive and non-invasive plants, but there's only one Lysimachia nummularia and one Glechoma hederacea. Latin names can help you avoid nasty surprises. It'’s worth learning a few handy Latin terms.
"Tossing about a few Latin names,” Emerson concluded, “will impress your friends and neighbors and, more importantly, make you a more knowledgeable gardener. Get out there and get some dirt under your fingernails.”
• • •

In his Nov. 15, 2008 column, “Farewell to summer,” Emerson wrote:
“The door to summer has slammed shut with a resounding thump. Oddly, the imminent arrival of blustery winter days always takes me home to the much-heralded halcyon days of summers past. It was the edict of some parents in the sister cities of Stow and Chatham that children shouldn't go shoeless until the last snows disappeared from the ledges of Mount Baldface. Because I would shed my shoes as soon as the ice was out of the bathtub, many of my fondest memories involve the feel of the earth against my feet. The cold, muddy soil of spring gave way to the lush greenness of June. I can close my eyes and feel the warm earth between rows of tall tomatoes. July brought the stubble of a mown hayfield. The banks of the Cold River offered a smorgasbord of mud, sand, clay, weeds and poison ivy. By mid summer, my soles were inured to the rough gravel of the dooryard. When school opened in September, I had to be live-trapped and hogtied before I could be shod. Can you blame my feet for not wanting to be insulated from the delights of the earth?”
He then closed the end-of-season gardening column by noting, “You’ve earned a few hours to sit by the fire dreaming about summers past and gardens future.”
And so have you, David. So have you.
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