By Joseph Clark III
(Please note: This site no longer refers to any retale business that took place here ending in 2000.)
(Russell Clark (1924-2001)was one of 30 first cousins of the third generation of the vast family of Ernest (1866- 1961) and Sarah Clark (1874-1963) of Tolland, Massachusetts, USA.
Russell Clarks father, Rupert (1890-1961)was the oldest of 12 children of Ernest and Sarah, and Russell was the middle child of the seven children of Rupert and Belle(Rogers)Clark (1892-1954). Russell (as is his siblings) was a direct descendant of three passengers on the Mayflower, two by his Grandmother Clarks line (Giles Hopkins and Richard Warren) and one by his mothers line (Thomas Rogers). His mother even carried the Rogers name.
Russell and his family lived in a couple of places in Tolland finally settling at the old Rogers place in Tolland Center, where he subsequently grew up. His parents had a dairy and maple syrup farm there.
He graduated from Westfield High School in 1943 and came to live on his uncle Joe Clarks farm in Tolland from 1944 through 1954.I was just a baby then.
View of the gardens at Joe Clarks farm in 1949.
Russell was the first male influence in my life. I never really understood until later who he was. In the days of WWII, farming was a protected profession, and the Clarks of Tolland were all farmers, so it was a scramble to find help within the family. Russell came to live with us, milking the cows, helping spreading manure, picking apples, getting in hay, setting maple trees and especially with cutting logs with a hand operated cross cut saw.
Russ's handywork at a young age. Gardens in 1949. He had his workshop in the garage seen in background, built in 1948.
Dads mill was located across the valley on our Far Knolls. The logs were cut in the fall and when there was snow, hauled to the portable mill they had set up there by horses and sled. It was on our land across the valley and we could see the growing pile of sawdust from our big old farmhouse. The mill was powered by a portable gas engine, a big one. The finished pine boards were taken out in the spring after the ground firmed up by our model A truck to New Boston where they were bought by a lumber finishing mill there.
It was on Dads mill location across the valley that Russell cut his finger off in 1946 reaching for an edging pinched in by the big whirling blade.
Us kids with Russ and Elaine, before they were married in 1954.
It was hours before they got him to a hospital. They crawled off out of the woods by the old truck to Uncle Georges house, deep in the valley where our cousin Beatrice drove him to Winsted Hospital. He walked around for weeks with his sore finger (what was left of it) barely able to sleep at night.
Russell was a gentle ,quiet person with a great love of beauty and form. He did not love farm labor as much as he loved to tinker and build models and small quirky gadgets. As a little kid I loved to read the Popular Mechanics magazine he collected. When he and Dad built our garage in 1948, Russell made a finished work bench section on the south end complete with double floor, heavy duty vise and a wood stove. There he placed his bench saw and sander and built the most wonderful things:Toy boats, a model battleship,weather vanes, a Viking ship, playing card boxes, a telescope, (my favorite), a fine pine desk, and a corner shelf for my mothers cup and saucer collection and he wood carved small figures of Pluto and Goofy. My mother was was very fond of him as was Dad and my sisters and I.
The cactus corner....
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My mother constantly warned me about touching his things and being a pest and I tried hard not to.
He was a Red Sox fan and I became one too, much to the irritation and delight of my father and sisters who became, predictably, arrogant and boastful Yankee fans.
I am still a suffering Red Sox fan to this day.
Though Dad was not an "unlover" of flowers and lawns, he had little time for such things with the unlimited chores around the farm. So its to Russells credit that he did have time to develop the lawns and flower gardens north of the driveway out of what was a rocky cow pasture. Dad had begun the basics of this lawn and garden in 1937, as Mom demanded some resemblance of civilization...and immediately! but Russell used his wheelbarrow and a lot of time to put his instincts of balance and proportion to good use. The perennials were his pride and joy and no matter what time of the year, he was careful to include flowers that bloomed on their own so that the garden always had color. These flowers continue to exist today and the same walkways and blooms can be seen.
When Russell left in 1954 to marry Elaine we were left with having to do his chores on our own. Peggy drove the haytruck before this thankless chore fell to me as I grew older. At 10, I did not understand or comprehend that he was leaving us until the day he left and the first feelings of pain set in some days and weeks later when I realized he was not coming back. Although my older sisters were closer to Russell than me because they often went to square dances as a group, I never the less much appreciated the fact that he always took the time to answer my many questions about everything with more than a "yep" "nope" or "maybe".
.... A great revelation came one day when the Red Sox were being derided as losers by my sisters and Russell just shook his head. Why they were "losers" was never clear. I understood baseball, the one thing I did understand, you hit the ball and ran the bases but why did they always loose?
"Why do they loose?" I asked Russell one day as he was at his vise planning something.
"Who loose ?..." he said looking down at me.
"The Red Sox.....Why do they always loose..?"
Then came a stunner.
"Because they dont get any base hits..." he said. "If you dont get base hits you cant score any runs...and you loose."
My cousin Russell at that time gave me, the stupidest kid anywhere, a clear picture that eluded me. Base hits. Getting on base. Suddenly it made sense.
As recent as days before I heard he had passed away,it occured to me to dub a video for him of the bear that keeps hanging around. At the last picnic he said that he had never seen one and I thought he might get a kick out of it. My son Joe had found Russells high school year book and returned it to him at the picnic a couple of years ago. And I always wanted to ask him about our old 1936 Dodge car..one day when I got off the schoolbus I found it all burned up in the cow pasture, just a smoking wreck and I never knew how or why.>
In his first ten years after high school, Russell made a lasting imprint that is felt here today still.
Peggy, Russell and me sledding in 1946. I remember this picture well.
Peggy and Irwin in 1941. Before Russell came to live with us, his older brother Irwin was our savior around the farm, especially when Dad broke his leg while cutting furnace wood with the old "one lunger". (trouble always happens when cutting wood.)
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Deepest regards, JJ (Joseph Clark III, The oldest of three remaining blood related Clarks left in Tolland, plus one wife and three widows of the original 12.)
Inkoming@aol.com
