This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Laws, Atwood, Found, Anderson Classification: Obituary Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/QAw.2ACIB/752 Message Board Post: Portland Press Herald Portland, ME October 28, 2001 Clifford W. Laws, pastor who loved small-town living NORTH CONWAY, N.H. — The Rev. Clifford W. Laws, a small-town minister with a twinkle in his eye, died Oct. 27, 2001, at Sunbridge Health Care. He was 92. The Rev. Laws loved the country life, and served congregations in rural communities in New Hampshire and Maine before retiring to Kittery Point, where he and his wife spent more than 20 years. "He just got involved in everything in town. Wherever they went they just got into the community," said one of his two daughters, Janet Found of Silver Lake. A craftsman, her father made wooden toys, furniture and knick-knacks that he gave to church fairs, family and friends. He was born in Lynn, Mass., and found his calling after moving north. "When he was 18, as he tells it, he went with a friend up to Oxforfd, Maine to pick potatoes," said his other daughter, Martha Anderson of South Hampton. He stayed in Maine, working in a sawmill. "He never wanted to go back to the city," she said. He received degrees from the Bangor Theological Seminary and Middlebury College in Vermont. He served parishes in Westfield, Vt., and Errol in the 1930s. He married Elizabeth Atwood of Pelham in 1933. The Rev. Laws served in the Army as a chaplain in the Pacific from 1943 to 1945. After the war, he became a minister in the Center Ossipee Congregational Church in New Hampshire. He and his family lived in Center Ossipee until 1957. He was a volunteer firefighter and chief there from 1950 to 1956. He also did a daily news broadcast for the Grey Birch Network. He moved to Bethel, Maine, in 1957 and was minister in the West Parish Congregational Church until 1968. The Rev. Laws wasn't a fancy talker. He was a down-to-earth man, a folksy minister. "He was a real kidder. He always had a twinkle in his eye," Janet Found said. He became director of Rockcraft Lodge, a conference center in Sebago Lake, Maine, owned by the Maine United Church of Christ. He retired in 1977 and moved with his wife to Kittery Point. He served two times briefly as interim pastor at the First Congregational Church at Kittery Point. His wife died in May 2000 and a son, David, died in August 2001. Surviving are his two daughters, Janet Found of Silver Lake and Martha Anderson of South Hampton; six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. A funeral will be held at 2 p.m. Tuesday at the First Congregational Church, 23 Pepperell Road, Kittery Point. The Rev. Jill Vogt will officiate. Burial will follow at First Congregational Cemetery, Kittery Point. Arrangements are by the Wilson-Cooper Funeral Home, Kittery. — John Richardson