Clifford Chappell

Nomadic by nature, Clifford Chappell, known affectionately as Clem, settled into his final resting place in Grace Cemetery in 1996. 

“He was a wanderer,” his older brother Roderick recalls. 

Rod’s memory drifts back to 1943: World War II was raging, and the Chappell family, with four young boys, was living on Blackstone Street in South Providence. 

Rod, then about 8, and his five-year-old brother Clifford cut through an elderly man’s yard on the way to the corner store one afternoon. 

Suddenly, the man emerged from his front door and stood on the porch, yelling at the boys and shaking his fist. 

No strangers to mischief, the boys’ instinct sent them scurrying. A few moments later, Rod was catching his breath back at the house. Hands on knees, Rod lifted his head and noticed Clifford had not followed him. 

The police found Clifford in Conimicut – over seven miles away – later that night. 

Clifford seemed to spend the best times of his youth in the great outdoors. 

“There was no TV in those days,” Rod remembers fondly. “We would pitch horseshoes in the backyard during the summer time.” 

Clifford joined the neighborhood boys in outings to the ponds of Roger Williams Park; fishing in the summer, ice skating in winter. They’d even make rafts out of scrap wood and sail them around the man-made lakes. Clifford’s father helped shape the park’s ponds under the WPA during the Depression preceding World War II. 

The boys in the neighborhood would also walk to Cranston – then little more than woods – to hunt and swim at the Cranston public pool. They picked wild blueberries along what is now Route 2. They’d also dash the fields in furious games of stickball. 

It was with these boys that Clifford received a nickname that was to stick for life: Clem. Even his brother Rod is unsure how the name first originated, but it probably developed as an alternative because another boy in their group was also named Clifford.

In their more devilish moments, the boys would creep into condemned houses and rip out the lead pipes. They’d then sell the pipes as scrap metal to collect enough money to go to the latest movie.

Clem would shovel snow during the winter, and in the summer, he and Rod would go clamming at Buttonwoods and sell their catch to wholesalers in order to earn 15 cents for the movies. Like most boys, Clem enjoyed the latest horror movie or western.

“We got chased many times trying to sneak in,” Rod remembers.

At school, Clem and his friends would pitch pennies against the wall during recess. But Clem was never really interested in school.

When he was around 7, Clem’s father, a machinist with Hammill and Dahl Machinist Company in Warwick Industrial Park, and his mother, Gertrude, a homemaker, talked the city into letting them purchase a condemned house at 61 Portland Street, just a few blocks from what was to be Clem’s final resting place in South Providence.

Clem first attended Friendship Street School, which was practically across the street from his family’s new home. Then he moved on to Peace Street School, followed by Gilbert Stuart Junior High School.

Clem moved on to Central High School, but didn’t stay long before dropping out. He went to work as a driver and helper on a Providence garbage truck, saving the scrap metal and return bottles from the truck and selling them for extra cash.

At about 18, Clem picked up and left for California with his sweetheart Amy Tetault and her family. Settling near San Francisco, he married Amy, who gave birth to their first child, Clifford Jr., in 1960.

The new family moved back to Rhode Island and settled in downstairs from brother Rod in Coventry for the first year. From there, they moved to a house on Bucklin Street, near Gilbert Stuart Junior High School.

Clem’s father got him a job as a janitor at the Machinist Company in Warwick Industrial Park. Life was starting to look up for Clem’s new family. But then, in 1966, tragedy struck. As six-year-old Clifford Jr. crossed Princeton Avenue from Gilbert Stuart Middle School, a woman accidentally struck and killed him in her automobile.

“I think that never really left my brother,” Rod reflects. Clem began drinking more heavily, Rod notes, a habit that would plague him throughout his life.

Clem and Amy had three more children: John, known as Jackie; Bernadette and David. John Chappell and Bernadette Prince went on to enjoy careers in the U.S. Navy and currently reside in the South. 

After young Clifford Jr.’s death, Clem and Amy moved their family to Clarksburg, West Virginia. 

“I think he wanted a fresh start,” Rod speculates.

The family lost touch with Clem during this time, but he did come to Rhode Island to visit his parents in their new home in North Kingstown once, bringing his father fresh venison and homemade moonshine, Rod recalls. 

Then, in 1985, Clem returned to Rhode Island – without his wife and children. Divorced, Clem moved into his parents’ Johnston Avenue home in North Kingstown. He got a part-time job within walking distance at Mancini’s Hardware, doing odd jobs for the owner. He also picked up a part-time job as a cook at the Irish Pub in Wickford. 

“He was right at home there,” Rod says with a laugh. “It was a perfect job for him. He liked to eat and cook – and drink, with a few on the house.” 

After his father died in 1987 and his mother passed away in 1990, Clem continued to live at their house. He never had a car – he usually walked everywhere and if the distance was too great, depended on others for rides. 

Once, Rod and Clem, along with their brother Charles took a trip to Foxwoods for a day of gambling and feasting at the buffet tables. Rod and Charles chipped in to give Clem $20 for gambling. He could never seem to save up any money on his own.

Clem often traveled up to Grace Church Cemetery from North Kingstown to lay flowers on the grave of his son. Rod Chappell says his brother never seemed to get over the death of his first-born child.

When he wasn’t working, Clem would frequent North Kingstown’s pizza parlor, where waitress Lynn Chase struck a friendship with him. 

“He was a burly looking guy,” Chase recalls. “He never talked too much; he could be very quiet.” 

But gradually Clem and Lynn began to talk. 

About a year into their friendship, Chase noticed Clem sitting in a nearby picnic grove. 

“He looked down and out,” she says. He was drunk and mourning his son’s death. 

Chase, who is very active in North Kingstown’s Christian congregational Exeter Chapel, consoled Clem and started bringing him to church with her on Sundays. 

Some times, he would reek of alcohol and fall asleep during the service, even snoring. But Chase and her family offered Clem friendship. He spent many nights on their couch. 

Chase’s four-year-old daughter enjoyed climbing on Clem when he fell asleep.

“When he’d wake up, his face would light up; he’d have a big smile,” Chase remembers fondly. “She almost never approaches people like that.”

After he turned 50, Clem’s health declined precipitously. He suffered two heart attacks in rapid succession. With the help of a few men at church, Clem sobered up. He’d come to church with the Chases wearing a nice suit, hair combed.

For two years, Clem seemed to find peace at church. He told his brother Charles that if a third heart attack struck, he wouldn’t fight it.

Early in 1996, Clem’s heart failed again. He was taken to South County Hospital, but he passed from this world on February 2, 1996. Without savings or any kind of insurance, Clem’s congregation took up a collection to pay for his funeral. A wanderer all his life, his family and friends now hope he’s now found eternal rest at Grace Church Cemetery, next to his first-born son, Clifford Jr.