This page is dedicated to CLARENCE ALVRA PETTENGILL who was born onto this earth on January 28, 1900 and passed on to his glory on September 13, 1987. He will be sadly missed by all who knew him and loved him but he will never be forgotten as long as we hold our cherished memories of him in our hearts.

LIFE STORY OF CLARENCE ALVRA PETTENGILL

Clarence Pettengill was born at Cliff Island, Maine on January 28, 1900. His first six years were spent on the island. His family were shipbuilders and fishermen. When he was about six years old his Dad was a watchman on a ferryboat.
He recalls once when his younger brother, Vernon, was two or three years old. Vernon had laid on the trolley tracks and the conductor had to stop the electric car there in South Portland and get him off the tracks.
Also how he, Clarence, and a friend, Leo Horr, once hooked a calf to the baby carriage and put Vernon in it and the calf ran away with him.
He remembered one of the games they would play on the island when he was a child was when he and his friends would fill a rowboat with jellyfish and have a war by throwing them at each other. They only used the white ones as the red ones were poisonous.
His family moved to South Portland and he attended second grade at South Portland School. They lived on the corner of Sawyer Street. He attended third grade at Portland at the Carrol Street School at the corner of High and School streets. While he lived in South Portland, he contracted scarlet fever and nearly died.
When Clarence was eight years old his father bought a farm and the family moved to Mount Vernon, Maine. While there, his oldest sister, Catherine, died of gastroentinitis. She was thirteen years old. Clarence said there were all these foods she wasn't supposed to eat and she decided she was going to eat them anyway, (I think he said mostly greens from the garden) and if she did die, she would die happy - and so she did. Clarence's mother became ill and the family moved back to Cliff Island. She died at Cliff Island from tuberculosis when he was ten years old. Two years later he lost his four year old sister, Marjorie, to tuberculosis also. This left only Clarence and Vernon, the two brothers, and their Dad.
When Clarence was about twelve years old, he remembered how he shucked clams, small ones, and cleaned cunners and sold them for twenty five cents a quart for spending money.
After his mother died, the children were cared for by a step-grandmother who was very mean to them, which may help account for the fact that Clarence left home at the age of fourteen. He left and it was years later before his Dad ever saw him or heard from him. He once told me he can never forgive himself for what his Dad must have gone through because he never let him know if he were alive or dead all those years.
He went for days without eating when he was between jobs and recalled when he had worked half a day at one place and then he asked to be paid. The boss said he wasn't in the habit of paying his employees after only a few hours work but when he found out Clarence hadn't eaten for several days he immediately paid him.
After he left home he got a job in an ammunition plant where they were making big shells for England.
At the age of fifteen , he signed on as second steward aboard an oil tanker which was just going out of the harbor. They took him out in a motorboat and he climbed a ladder and got aboard the ship. This ship went from Portland, Maine to Tampia, Mexico. The trip lasted for twenty-six days.
One summer he worked on the island steamers. These went back and forth from the mainland to the islands carrying supplies. In the winter the steamers came up to the ice and unloaded on the ice and hauled groceries and supplies to Cliff Island on sleds. He remembers in 1917, the ice froze over so thick you could walk from Cliff Island to Portland. This was the same year big white arctic owls that would attack a man, came down from the Arctic.
Clarence went to Havana, Cuba on a vessel where he worked as a Seaman. Then they went to Boka Grand, Florida: then back to Havana: then to Virginia where they loaded coal and brought it to Portland, Maine.
In 1916 and 1917 he had a job in a hat factory in Boston. Then he got a job in a restaurant. He said this was one of the fanciest restaurants in Boston and all the wealthy people ate there but the kitchen was very dirty and full of cockroaches and when some foods were returned half-eaten, they were instructed to pour them back into the kettle. He never thought much of eating out after that.
In 1917 he joined the army. He was in the 8th Cavalry - G TROOP, and stationed in Texas on the Mexican border. He was discharged in 1919. He had many fond memories of the Army. He had rattlers from rattlesnakes from Texas. He said they used to sleep out on the desert and when they'd wake up they could see the marks in the sand of the rattlesnakes which had crawled over them in the night while they slept.
He said the proudest moment in his life was when he was picked for Color Guard out of the 8th Cavalry. This was quite an honor and only two were chosen. There was no jealousy in the outfit when he was chosen. Instead, everyone was so proud of him that they brought out their best clothes and gave them to him to wear for the ceremony.
After his discharge from the Army, Clarence worked in the woods for awhile. Then he shipped out as an Able Seaman and received his Able Seaman's Papers. These took him three years to get and he always treasured these papers. It was another proud day for him when he received them. This time his ship went to Matansas, Cuba and was loaded with sugar which they took to Brooklyn, New York.
In the spring of 1920 he met Gladys Randall. He was just out of the Army. That winter he went by ship to Cuba. He married Gladys on April 3, 1921 at her family home in Mount Vernon, Maine.
In a few short years they had become the parents of several children. Clarence Jr. was born in 1922, followed by Elizabeth in 1923, Permelia in 1925 and Herbert in 1927. Times were hard and jobs were hard to come by and a lot of traveling was done these first years. Clarence worked on the State road (The Narrows) between Mount Vernon and Belgrade, Maine for two years during the summer. When he worked for the state he said he worked for the hardest man he ever worked for and he told Clarence he liked his work so well that if he stayed on, he'd make him the foreman.
Clarence worked for a "Miss Marberry" on a summer estate for three years. He worked at the Wilton Woolen Mill for four months. Then he worked in the woods again. His boss in the woods always sent him to show the other workmen what to do and he also was sent to take the boss's wife to do her shopping.
In 1929 he was the father of five children, the youngest, Ernest, being six weeks old. The family left the farm, which he and his dad had built, in Mount Vernon and moved to New Hampshire to find work. They lived in Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire for five years. He worked for a contractor for two years and then at odd jobs for a year after that. His wife was expecting another child and returned to Maine to stay with her parents until after the new baby, Mildred, was born. Meanwhile, he worked at a big summer estate in New Hampshire for an Asphalt King.
Clarence moved his family to Massachusettes in 1933 and their seventh child, Dorothy, was born. At this time he worked on a big dairy farm in Gardiner, Mass. He was there for two years. He milked one hundred and forty cows twice a day and forty cows three times a day. Seven days a week he worked from ten p m till ten fifteen a m for seventeen dollars and fifty cents a week. Then he had to move his family back to the farm in Mount Vernon, Maine. He worked for two months in Vermont and then went back to Maine and worked in the woods. They had to leave all their belongings in storage as they had no way to get them back to Maine and later they were sold because they couldn't pay the storage fees. When they got back to the farm, they found that all their belongings there had been stolen. More bad luck!!
Another daughter, Susie, was born in 1936. Clarence delivered this child as the doctor didn't arrive until much later. Susie was told later that the doctor took one look at her and gave them half their money back. Which, by the way, was the truth.
During the next few years, Clarence worked for the first year on W.P.A. and later in the woods and sawmills. During the depression the family lived on nothing but beans for months at a time, and when he was lucky he could work for twelve hours a day in the woods for a dollar a day.
Twin boys were born in 1940, Arthur and Alfred. Clarence drove a Navy truck from Maine to Brunswick, New Hampshire with bakery products. He also drove a truck at Brunswick Air Force Base.
In July of 1944 George Fred was born. In December of that year the family moved to Winthrop, Maine as Clarence and Gladys both had jobs in the woolen mill there. Clarence worked in the woolen mill for ten years and then got a job as a carpenter. He gave notice at the mill and for two weeks worked as a carpenter and also the midnight shift at the mill. He worked for nine years as a carpenter in Waterville, Hallowell, Gardiner, and Augusta, Maine. He did finishing work and rebuilding. One of the homes he worked on was the Governor's Mansion in Augusta, Maine. In 1954 he broke his foot and worked for several hours after it happened until the end of the day came and he went to the doctor and discovered that it was broken.
Then he worked as a carpenter in Winthrop, Maine until he became sick in 1962. When he went to the doctor his blood pressure was over 200 and the doctor said he had an enlarged heart and ulcers. When he got worse the doctor put him in the hospital and said he had hepatitis. Later the doctor discovered he had gallstones and removed his gall bladder. His stitches later burst and the doctor sewed him up with wire. He was in the hospital over a month and in very bad shape. He was told not to work and received an Army pension. However he still chopped down trees and sawed them up for firewood and did other hard work. In his later years of poor health he never lost his sense of humor. He always had a comeback remark and could tell some pretty wild tales.
Clarence was a very honest person all of his life and earned the love and respect of all who knew him. He worked hard all his life and raised eleven children with the help of his wife.
Clarence Pettengill passed away in his sleep on September 13, 1987. He had suffered a heart attack while splitting wood a couple of weeks before and never recovered.


A TRIBUTE TO MY DAD
by his daughter Susie Pettengill Crystal

Clarence Pettengill passed away in his sleep on September 13, 1987 in the early morning hours.
Here is a man who will forever be remembered by his loved ones - family and friends alike. There will never be another like him. His way of life was a hard one. He never had any of the comforts of home and never asked for any - just that he could earn enough money each day to put food on the table for his eleven children and his wife, and this he did. Even during the depression we never went hungry.
My Dad was a very special person.
He taught us never to judge a man by the color of his skin or by how much money he had. He said we were all created equal and to never think we were better than anyone else or that anyone was better than we were.
He taught us that no matter how poor we were we always had enough to share with others who were in need.
It wasn't very often that we heard him say, "I love you" but from the time we were born - even till now - we've felt that love and known he has loved us - no matter that we disappointed him - perhaps didn't do what he expected or wanted - his love was there for us and no children were loved more. He loved each of us in his own way. we shared his love equally, each knowing we were special to him in our own way. He was the kind of a Dad who was always proud of us We knew it without his saying a word.
I think most people will remember my Dad for his sense of humor. No matter how bad he was feeling, he could always find something to joke about. Perhaps that's what kept him going.
He could never be happy unless he was working. He never wanted anyone to do his work and when, finally, his body gave up and could work no longer, he was content to leave this world and go to a better one.
we shall miss our Dad - his sense of humor - his laugh - his smile - but we shall not miss his love - because we will always have that - it is still with us today and will always be and I know he is still watching over those he loves.

ANOTHER TRIBUTE TO MY DAD-FATHER'S DAY-1989
By his daughter Susie Pettengill Crystal

My father, Clarence Alvra Pettengill , passed away September 13, 1987. He was 87 years old - having been born at the turn of the century.
Dad was born at Cliff Island, Maine on January 28, 1900. His mother died when he was only ten years old and when he was fourteen he left home and got a job at an ammunition plant making big shells for England.
My father served in the 8th Cavalry in 1917 and he once told me the one thing in his life he was proudest of was being picked as color guard out of the 8th Cavalry. There were only two men picked and the others in his outfit were so happy for him that they brought out their best clothes for him to wear to the ceremony.
He also shipped out as a seaman and travelled to Havana, Cuba. In three years he received his Able Seaman's papers which was another very proud moment in his life.
My father worked at many occupations throughout his lifetime. Among them were - woodcutter - construction worker - farmer - carpenter - weaver - dairyman - ship steward - truck driver - bus boy - factory worker - caretaker - and in the woods and sawmill.
He worked hard all his life and raised a family of eleven children during the depression. He once told me that while he was working in Brunswick, the men would all stop working and take a break and get a soda for a nickel and he would feel the nickel in his pocket but although it was tempting, he never bought a soda because he knew every penny was needed at home. We'll never truly realize all he sacrificed for us.
When I think of my Dad, I remember a man who was compassionate, and kind, and loving.
I have memories of him staying up night after night in the hot August heat - canning corn so we would have food in the winter - and working in the woods the next day. Mom was in a nursing home at the time waiting to give birth.
I remember the days he would take me into the woods, carrying me on his shoulders, when he went to work as I was not old enough to go to school and there was no one at home to care for me. I would play in the woods while he felled trees and when I would get impatient with him - he would stop his work and take time to sit at a tree stump and have a lunch of pine cones and mud pies with his four year old daughter.
I remembered going with him in the spring while he gathered the sap from the maple trees for syrup and he would let me have a cupful of the cool sweet liquid to drink.
I remember going with him when he worked on the road and watching him light the pots along the road that would warn the motorists of dangerous curves and construction and then again in the morning as the flame was turned out for the daytime travellers.
I remember one night when I was badly burned and both he and my Mom stayed up all night with me and told me stories to keep my mind from the pain.
Also the many times when we'd get earaches and he'd blow smoke in our ears to ease the pain.
Or the times he'd drive many miles in the middle of the night to take us to the dentist when we'd have a bad toothache.
My father wasn't perfect. He had a very bad temper, especially in the earlier years, and we children were afraid of him when we were younger, I do admit that. But as I grew older, I knew him for his love and understanding and compassion.
My Dad was the sort of person who was always willing to help out another human being. He would gladly share his last dollar with a friend. He would share his home with a stranger. He would always go that extra mile.
Mu father taught me that the color of one's skin didn't matter - what mattered was what was in his heart. He taught me that I was not better than anyone else but that I was just as good as everyone else. He taught me many things throughout my life and I will always be grateful for these teachings. He taught me I was responsible for my own actions so I should choose my path wisely.
He taught me to never lose my sense of humor - even on the darkest days - because this is what you need to carry you through the clouds to the silver lining.
When all is said and done, I think what I will remember most about my Dad is his sense of humor. No matter how depressed or sick he was, or how bad things were going, he could always find a joke or story to lift your spirits.
My Dad could spin a yarn with the best of them and I shall miss listening to his stories about his early life on the steamers or when he was in the Cavalry in Texas with the rattlesnakes on the desert, or of his life on the island - but most of all I will miss his smile and the twinkle in his eye and the love I always felt when I was around him - and although his records state he was five foot, eight and a half inches tall, in my heart he will always be a giant among men.