W. Merritt Emerson Jr.
1921 – 2009
FARMINGTON — W. Merritt Emerson Jr., 87, a longtime resident of Farmington Falls, died Monday, Dec. 7, three days shy of his 88th birthday at the Edgewood Manor Rehabilitation and Living Center after a long life dedicated to public service.
He was born in Bangor, Dec. 10, 1921, the only child of Dr. W. Merritt and Helen (Hanlon) Emerson. His childhood was spent in Bangor and his early education was in the Bangor schools and at the side of his physician father, where he learned service to others.
As a teenager, he served as a volunteer Bangor firefighter at the State Street Fire Station, two blocks from his home. After graduation from Bangor High School in 1940, he studied at the University of Vermont and Colby College, where he met his future wife of 65 years, Ethel (Paradis) Emerson, who died in 2007.
Enlisting in the U.S. Army Air Corps after Pearl Harbor, he served as an aircraft gunner and gunnery instructor during World War II. Returning to Bangor after the war with his bride, he entered the University of Maine at Orono on the G.I. Bill.
After graduation he taught in the high schools of Corinna, Castine, Stratton and Jay, serving the last two schools as principal. In 1968, the Jay High School yearbook “Breezes” was dedicated in his name.
During the summers, he worked as the projectionist at the Jay Hill Drive-In. In 1968, he left Jay High School and joined the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department, where he served for 25 years as a full and part time deputy sheriff. He was later appointed postmaster of the Farmington Falls Post Office, retiring in 1991. While serving on the board of directors of Tri-County Mental Health Services, he and his wife Ethel were the founding members of the Farmington chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
He and Ethel are survived by two children, Sanford Emerson and his wife, Kathy, of East Dixfield and Elaine Smith and her husband, Kenneth, of Livermore Falls; two grandchildren, Scotti Smith and his wife, Tiffany, of Auburn and Amie Smith of Livermore Falls; and a great-granddaughter, Catherine J. Smith.
He was predeceased by a son, Gene Emerson, who passed away in 1992, after a long struggle with schizophrenia.