ALFRED OTIS CARRINGTON
July 9,1907-September 30, 1965
Dad with his new Plymouth
Dad with his new Plymouth
My father grew up in the farmlands of Bethany, Connecticut. His father was
Otis Edward Carrington, his mother Charlotte Clark Carrington. My sister did a family tree of the Carringtons and traced us back to Plymouth Rock in 1622. Supposedly the Clarks go all the way back to the Mayflower but, as far as I know, that's just rumor.
My father had two older sisters, Bernice and Beatrice, a younger brother, Howard, and a younger sister, Charlotte. His mother died of complications in Charlotte's birth and my grandfather married his brother's widow, Ethel, whom I knew as "Aunt Ethel" without ever understanding why. Ethel brought several of her children to the marriage, including my father's cousin Clara, who was close to my father's age and they became quite close. I knew her as Clara McDonald, who still lived in Bethany when I was growing up. She had a girl and a boy, Larry, who was my age and worked next door at Hiram Carrington's dairy farm. Hiram was my grandfather's brother, a little fireplug of a man who ordered around his five strapping six-foot sons, including Byron Carrington, who eventually became first selectman of Bethany and died in his 40s.
In any case, my father grew up on a farm in Bethany, Connecticut, with 5 or more siblings and cousins. He was taught to swim by being thrown in the middle of the farm pond. Needless to say, he didn't swim very well and didn't go swimming at all, if he could help it. He also trapped in the woods, resulting in an encounter with a skunk that wasn't yet dead. My father slept in the barn that night and his clothes were buried.
As long as I can remember, my father's hair was white. Although it thinned as he aged, he kept a pair of black bushy eyebrows and never wore glasses. Apparently his hair had turned white almost overnight when he was 27.
Among the stories I remember my father telling about his childhood and growing up--
His father tried to teach him how to swim by throwing him out of a boat in the middle of a pond. (He showed us the pond several times on our way to visit Clara.) It didn't work and he stayed out of the water as much as possible afterwards.
He used to trap in the woods and one day got sprayed by a skunk he had trapped. They had to bury his clothes and he had to take a milk bath to get the smell out and it still lingered for about a week.
In 1960, as I was leaving New York for the summer, Ray Locke and Tommy Embler went with me to the LIU dorm to pick up my belongings. When we got back to our house in North Haven, Ray Locke got my parents talking about their early years. It was a knack Ray had which I wish I had (very useful for a writer) and I heard stories from them that night that I had never heard before and never heard again:
Tonight Ray got my father talking. He lived near the Bethany airport and talked about the things that happened there.
He saw a fellow parachute when it didn't open and was on the field when he hit--"He made quite a splash." One fellow (Bert Custer) wouldn't fly unless half-drunk. He flew under Naugatuck Bridge with 6-inch clearance on each side and under the Grand Avenue Bridge. [When someone told him later that he had only that 6-inch clearance, he said, "Of course. I measured it. Do you think I'm crazy?"] They said "he could fly a barn door." My father went up with him and handled planes in the air--stick on the left controlled up, down, and sidewise by pulling it right, pedals on floor also helped turn, and throttle was on right. Once, with Custer, they did loops, etc., then came down on the hanger--my father was in the front seat--the wheels rolled across the roof of the hanger! To land he did a reverse loop. Another fellow went up against a stiff wind, stalled, and landed gently in a cherry tree at the end of the runway. Custer took up a plane without warming it up, its wheels caught a fence, and flipped over. He later fought in the Spanish Civil War [where he was killed]. They talked about inside loops and reverse loops--inside loop starts at bottom; outside loop on top. Talked about not hearing passenger next to you in open cockpit-- wind whistling through struts--wires open to touch.
He talked about the Model T Ford he bought. A couple of guys brought it from Boston and were returning when it flipped and killed one, seriously injuring the other. A year later it was rebuilt and painted robins egg blue and my father bought it. He drove to Waterbury, having 8 flats, having to pry the tire from the rim, patching the tube, inflating it, and back on. A station attendant left the stopcock open and the oil came out, ruining his engine. In one year it cost him $637 for repairs, including 2 rear ends. Talked about backing up hills, always cranking, running back to spark, throttle, and choke, retarding spark, stopping for water, doing his own valve jobs.
My mother said when Pop came over in his new Plymouth (probably the only new car he ever owned), she started off on the right foot: "My, this is a nice Ford"
My father went to Commercial High School in New Haven. (When I was growing up, the building was still there but it was now two high schools--Hillhouse and Wilber Cross.) Under his picture in his yearbook was the phrase "Nothing in nature is unbeautiful." (Under my picture in my high school yearbook, it said "The more we argued the question, the more we didn't agree.") He graduated at the same time that our family doctor, Louis Parella, did. They didn't know each other then. I discovered it while looking in my father's yearbook.
I don't know how my parents met but, when my father died,
my mother said they had only argued once, after which my father said, "I can't live without you" and proposed. I don't remember any screaming arguments between them but my father sometimes had a short temper. He used to get angry when he lost at cards (we played canasta a lot). After we chided him for it a number of times, he managed to control it but you could see it was an effort. If my mother got too critical of his driving, he would snap at her, sometimes telling her to get in the back seat if she didn't like it. But that's the only time I can remember him getting mad at her. Mostly he got mad at us and even then it was usually just a grumble.
They were married on
June 28, 1933,
and lived in a house on Dodge Avenue in East Haven across from my mother's parents until they moved in July 1942 into the Cape Cod house at 239 Maple Avenue in North Haven where I grew up. My sister
Marilyn was born on March 11, 1934; I was born on June 4, 1938; and my brother
Wayne was born on September 18, 1944.
The first job I can remember my father having was as a machinist at High Standard (they made munitions) in Hamden during World War II. He was 34 when Pearl Harbor was bombed and managed to avoid the draft. Later he delivered feed and other farm supplies for the Davis Feed Company in New Haven. Finally he worked for over 20 years at the North Haven Brick Company as a laborer.
He died there of a massive coronary while driving a forklift. The doctor said he was dead before he hit the ground and never knew what hit him.
My father and I weren't particularly close (although I do remember playing baseball with him in the back yard when I was about 10). He was too tired when he came home to have a lot to do with us, although he drove us to the library (where he also took out books) and to Wharton Brook State Park for swimming lessons. (One day coming home from the lessons, the brakes failed on his old Chevy and he went through the garage door and almost through the back of the garage. My mother came out and laughed, which only made him madder. For several years afterwards, the garage did not have a door.) Sometimes we'd go fishing together at the clay pit ponds by the brickyard. We never caught anything worth talking about and I
was too quick and impatient and I drove him crazy. My sister apparently was closer to him, although I never realized it until after my mother died. She says he always wanted to travel but didn't because my mother always worried about leaving something on when we left or getting burglarized (none of which ever happened the few times when we went anywhere). I guess I got my wanderlust from his genes. During high school, I considered becoming a forest ranger. I was surprised when I read his yearbook and found out that he had wanted to go to the University of Connecticut and study forestry. I didn't. Sometimes I wish I had.
