Clayton Cutting

GUILFORD -- Clayton Lewis Cutting, 81, of Guilford, died at home on Dec. 4, 2006.

He was born in Guilford, on Aug. 3, 1925, to Leon Lewis and Mabel Ellen (Woodard) Cutting.

He attended the Wellman one-room school on Sweet Pond Road and Brattleboro High School.

Mr. Cutting was a farmer and lived in Guilford throughout his whole life. He worked his family farm most recently with a pair of Belgian Perchon draft horses named Diamond and Chub which he broke from colts. He used his team to sugar, log and work the land.

He care took for many summer houses in Green River and drove school bus for the town of Guilford for 19 years.

He was a selectman for the Town of Guilford from 1967 to 1976. The Broad Brook Grange selected him as “Person of the Year” in 1999.

Mr. Cutting was the superintendent of the Guilford Fair horse draw from its inception until 2001. He was a longtime president of the Fair Association, which has since named a building after him and established the Clayton Cutting Good Sportsmanship Award.

He married the former Doris Antoinette Phelps, who survives, on Aug. 4, 1946, in Greenfield, Mass. They were married on a Sunday, as that was the best day of the week for the farmers to take a day off. The Cuttings celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary with a family picnic in August.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by his four children, Nancy Bevis and her husband Bart, Diane LaClair and her husband Lewis, Reed Cutting and his wife Sandy and Ronald Cutting and his wife Joan; 12 grandchildren, Melissa Snow, Edward “PJ” Snow and Amy Wood, Kristy Butynski and her husband Jeremy and their two sons, Spencer and Peyton, Kyle LaClair and his wife Bethaney, Kari LaClair and her fiancée Justin Reilly and their daughter Ella and soon to be arriving Izabel, Tana Cutting and her partner Josh Hartshorn and their soon-to-be arriving baby, Savannah Cutting, Zachary Cutting, Travis, Chad and Ryan Cutting.

He is also survived by his sister, Madolyn Meyer and her husband Herb and many nieces and nephews.

Mr. Cutting was predeceased by his parents, his older brother Harvey Cutting and his wife Obie and his sister Marolyn Murray and her husband Richard, and a great-granddaughter, Shea Allisa Butynski, on Sept. 23, 2005.

Calling hours will be at the KER-WESTERLUND & FLEMING FUNERAL HOME on High Street in Brattleboro from 7 to 9 p.m. on Friday.

The funeral will be at Guilford Community Church on Saturday at 2 p.m., with burial immediately following at the Guilford Center Cemetery.

For those who wish, memorial contributions may be made to the Guilford Fire Department or Rescue Inc.u