Clarence Scott "Pat" Emmons

1908 - 1998

Son of Orrin William and Jennie Centennial (Scott) Emmons.

Clarence working at a Salem, Oregon station as a lube jockey - circa mid 1920s
Pat was a 1925 Manning High School graduate.

Born in Manning, Iowa, he was the son of Orrin and Genevieve (Scott) Emmons.
He moved to Salem at age 17 and graduated in 1931 from the Willamette University College of Law. He served in the Navy during World War II, attaining the rank of captain.
He married Mildred Irene Pugh on Oct. 26, 1929, in Roseburg. She died July 28, 1985.

Longtime Albany attorney takes last ride in favorite car

BY MARILYN MONTGOMERY
Albany Democrat-Herald

If Pat Emmons' 1959 DeSoto Explorer station wagon could talk, it would have to stop for breath, recounting when his son Dave drove it 100 miles an hour across the Yaquina Bay Bridge to get Pat to a hospital after his second heart attack.
It would probably clam up about what son Mike was doing when he put it into a ditch the day after Thanksgiving the year it was new.
It might groan when recalling dozens of trips to lumber yards with Pat and his son-in-law, John Hancock.
And it would have to chuckle about its last trip with Pat, Monday afternoon, taking the proud old lawyer to his resting place at a cemetery in south Salem.

"I spent numerous days with Pat, working on various projects," Hancock said. "He told me, 'I want to be buried in that car."'
"If we could have found a burial plot big enough, we would have done it," Mike Emmons said.

Emmons, 89, died May 12 at his home in Albany. After working as an assistant attorney general for Oregon, he started a private law practice in Albany in 1948. He was Albany First Citizen in 1956 and president of the Oregon Bar Association in 1959 and 1960. He bought the yellow and white '59 DeSoto wagon when it was new and Mike was a senior in high school. He hauled lumber in it, took the family to the coast in it, drove to work in it. Just a couple years ago, he was on another coast trip when one of the front wheels fell off. He called the car Old Blue. Explanations vary, but a leading theory is that the car was named for Paul Bunyan's blue ox since it did so much work.
"It was a very luxurious car," Dave said.
"Some of the children abused it, but I don't remember who," Mike said.
The right front fender is a slightly different shade of yellow than the rest of the car. That's from Mike's mishap almost 39 years ago. Three of the four headlights work, and the radiator has a small leak that Hancock worked on for days, anticipating the drive to Salem.

After a public memorial service Monday morning, Emmons' family gathered at Fisher Funeral Home to load up Old Blue. Hancock parked the car in the hearse port facing Washington Street.

The parking gear in the pushbutton automatic transmission hasn't held for a long time, so someone stuck a yellow workboot under a front tire to keep the car from rolling away.
Family moved aside the spare tire and a green metal toolbox so the pallbearers could get Emmon's polished wood casket into the back. When they did, the others gathered there burst into spontaneous applause.

Emmons served in the Navy during World War II and was a captain when he left the service. He was buried in his Navy uniform, and his casket was draped with a 48-star flag. It had flown over Okinawa in 1948, daughter Karen Hancock said.

His children measured the dimensions of the DeSoto before they picked out his casket, Karen said.
Her father, a frugal man, demanded an inexpensive wood box but didn't specify what kind. "We argued about that," she said. "John told me he never went to a lumberyard with my dad but what he didn't pick out the cheapest piece of wood there. It had better be pine!" Hancock, to whom Emmons gave the DeSoto's title some years ago, drove his father-in-law's body to the cemetery. He nudged the old car carefully onto Washington Street just after 1 p.m. and headed north. The odometer read somewhere around 183,000 miles.

"I thought, Pat wanted to be buried in this car," Hancock said. "At least he's going out of town in the style he came into it."

Manning Monitor article ------ 1944

These two brothers, Captain Floyd H. Emmons (left) of the U. S. Army, and Lieutenant (j.g.) Clarence S. Emmons of the Navy, both Salem attorneys are natives of Manning, where they were born respectively in 1907 and 1908. They moved with their family to Salem in 1925 and both graduated from Willamette; Floyd in 1930 and Clarence in 1931.
Floyd left a position as accountant for Credit Bureaus, Inc., to enlist in February, 1942.
He took his basic training at Fort Lewis and Geiger Field, Spokane, completed officers' training at Camp Lee, Virginia, and was commissioned second lieutenant in August; 1942.
He was assigned to Pasco, Wash., holding and re-consignment point and is now there as chief transportation officer. He was promoted to first lieutenant in November, 1942, and to captain a year later. He recently attended a meeting of transportation officers at Salt Lake City.

Lt. (j.g.) Clarence practiced law in Salem with his father, Orrin W. Emmons, from 1931 to July, 1938, when he was appointed assistant state attorney general in the industrial accident department. He resigned in February, this year, to enter naval training school at Tucson, Arizona, and received his commission from Washington April 12. He stopped here in Manning on his way from Salem to the Atlantic coast to continue his instruction in amphibious training.

A family dinner was held at the home of Mr. and Mrs. O.W. Emmons at their residence on Court street Sunday evening, honoring their son, Lt. (j.g.) Clarence S. Emmons, home on leave.
Covers were placed for Mr. and Mrs. Robert E. Emmons of Portland, Mr. and Mrs. Clarence S. Emmons and four sons, David, Terrance, Patrick and Michael of Salem; Mr. and Mrs. Lyle N. Riggs and daughter, June, and son James of Willamina, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas A. Armstrong and sons Richard and Weslay of Salem; and Mr. and Mrs. O. W. Emmons.