A long life, well lived

Emerick Lamontagne

Red Light in the Sky

Transcription (Jan 18, 1996)

Jane Eklund
Monadnock Ledger Staff

GREENVILLE Some people manage to fit several lives into one lifetime. Emerick Lamontagne, historian, musician, artist and longtime mill employee, was one such person.

   Lamontagne died Monday at 94, leaving behind a legacy that leaving Includes intricate drawings of area textile mills and B & M freight trains, a history of the Barrett Mansion in New Ipswich and friends and neighbors who remember him with fondness and
respect. 

   "I am missing him tremendously already," Mike DelVal, Lamontagne's next-door neighbor, said Tuesday. "He was a person you could really admire."
Lamontagne was born in New Ipswich in 1902, the youngest of 12 children. He left school after the eighth grade and took a full time job at Warwick Mills, then known as No. 2 Mill. He worked at the mill until 1924, placing bob-bins on looms.

   For five years, he lived in Worcester, Mass., working as a machinist for the John Bath Precision Tool Company while studying commercial design at night.

   Lamontagne returned to New Hampshire in 1929, settling in Greenville, where he would spend the rest of his life. He took a job at the Otis Mill in 1933, remaining with the company through various owners until the operation shut down in 1970, and then continuing as caretaker of the mill buildings until his retirement three years later.

   During a December 1991 interview with the Ledger, Lamontagne remembered life in a mill town during the depression. "Wages were cut 35 percent," he said. "The company owned tenements and charged only $1.50 a month for workers. 

   People went into debt, until the recovery." He also remembered the days
when Greenville was the economic hub of the area, with two drugstores Whitings and Dr. Hall's - several several grain stores, four barbers, two blacksmiths, two butcher shops and a fish market. That all changed when automobiles came on the scene, he re-called. "People went to the cities to get better prices," he said.

   Lamontagne devoted much of his retirement to chronicling the industrial Greenville and New Ipswich of his youth.

    Returning to the artwork he'd left behind some 50 years before, he created from memory-extremely detailed, line drawings of mill machinery and the freight trains that passed through town. His works can be seen today at Chamberlin Library.

   Tuesday, people in Greenville remembered Lamontagne not only for the work he left, but also for his quiet, cheerful presence.

   "He was so pleasant, so unprepossessing," said Selectman Mary Pelletier, who shared with Lamontagne a love of music. When she served as organist of the Federated Church, located next door to Lamontagne's Pleasant Street house, Pelletier said, he would often tell her he loved to listen to her rehearse.

   "He just always was so appreciative of any efforts I did that were music," she said.

   Lamontagne sang with the Sacred Heart Church men's choir, and was also a pianist and organist.

    From time to time, he'd stop by Town Hall during office hours, climb to the second story hall and play the piano, to the delight of the staff working downstairs.

    Lamontagne had a history playing piano in that upstairs hall: During the early days of film, he accompanied the silent movies shown there.

    His neighbor DelVal remembers him playing his organ two or three times a day.

   DelVal, who shared an interest in machinery with Lamontagne, accompanied him to auctions, out for breakfast and on a trip to the Precision Museum in Vermont.

    "He and I had a lot in common," he said. "We had 50 years difference in our age, but I often wish I grew up when he did."

   DelVal's wife, Stacy, remembers Lamontagne as "very much of a gentleman. He had some wonderful tales to tell about the town in days gone by."

   He was also the only man to attend Stacy's baby shower last fall, after she and her husband adopted a child.

   Pelletier, who also attended the shower, recalled, "He said, 'I'm looking around at all these women, and I'm the only man here and I love it."

   Both DelVals remembered their neighbor as a patient, steady worker one who still mowed his own lawn, painted his own trim and shoveled his own driveway up until last year.

   "He used to get quite a kick out of the fact that he'd get his lawn mowed before I got mine done," Stacy said.

   Lamontagne's wife, Alice, died in October. The couple had been married 73 years.

   Last week, on Jan. 4, his 94th birthday, he made his way up the stairs of the Town Hall and sat down at the piano. Town employees joined him. "We all went up and sang 'Happy Birthday," Selectmen's Secretary Ellen McCreary said.

James Roger diary entry

March 16, 1909 (Tuesday)

Frosty fine day, good sun heat during day, clouding over in afternoon wind west to S.W. forcast rain or snow tonight.  Wednesday Fair.  David choring round in forenoon and went to Greenville with apples and turnips to Robbin’s.  Brought tomatoes and onions also freight for Wilbur.  Got pc from May and Barbara has 2 teeth.  All the rest well , also a few lines from Hamish with papers for Wilbur to rectify.  Social at Parsonage tonight. Principal Lewis speaks on “Light” There was a fairly good attendance and good lecture.

275th Anniversary Celebration Events

Saturday - March 29, 2025 - 11AM - 2PM

Chili cook off

2025 is the 275th anniversary of the founding of New Ipswich! There will be town events and celebrations throughout the year and this first one is coming right up. If you have the perfect chili recipe and want to enter it to win bragging rights and your place in Town history, then register today and we look forward to seeing you on March 29th. Use the QR code above to enter. (Only New Ipswich residents can enter their chili, but anyone and everyone is very welcome to come and eat lunch and judge).