Unity
Whether it was the design of a new toy, work on a sculpture or drafting policy in the New Hampshire House of Representatives, friends and family say Bridge wasn’t one to back down from problems. Instead, they said, he was the first to embrace them.
“He was just a really hard-working guy looking for new ways to do things,” said state Rep. Steven Smith, R-Charlestown, who served closely with Bridge in the Legislature. “He would not leave something undone.”
Many also remember Bridge, who died on June 13, 2017, at age 82 after a long period of declining health, as a family man who enjoyed being part of a large extended family and instilled in his children a love for the outdoors.
“He loved our family,” said Barbara Mutney, his sister-in-law. “He loved being in the family, and he appreciated that we all welcomed him.”
Bridge was born on June 7, 1935, in Keene to Ernest Bridge Sr. and Helen Foley Bridge, and grew up in the southern New Hampshire village of Spofford. Bridge attended Keene High School before entering service in the Air Force.
On his return to the Granite State in 1960, Bridge met and married Beverly Jane Holmes, a Grantham resident who was the youngest of eight children.
For Bridge, who had no siblings, being introduced to such a large family was a culture shock, said Mutney, Beverly’s sister. The first time he was brought over for dinner, some jokingly wondered if he’d ever come back, she said.
“Ernie was immersed into our family,” Mutney said. “We were kind of his adopted family.”
Bridge attended the University of New Hampshire, graduating in 1962 and quickly being recruited by General Motors in Michigan to design clay models of new cars. There, he and Beverly began raising two children; Viki and Chris Bridge.
The family settled in on a dead-end street on a half acre lot, said Viki Bridge, adding her father made the best of the space. He built a tree house for the children, as well as a picnic area.
Viki Bridge also remembers her father constructing a big cardboard gorilla in the yard that children could practice archery on.
“He was very smart,” she said, remembering when her father received his master’s degree in sculpture at Wayne State University in Detroit. “I just remember thinking ‘I’m going to get a master’s degree some day.’ ”
At home, Bridge was known to work with his hands to craft large sculptures. One of his most notable was an 8-foot tall Siamese cat chair, which he installed speakers in, Viki Bridge said.
“When I run into cousins, they still ask whatever happened to that chair,” she said.
Talking also came easily to Bridge, and his children preferred to get a spanking rather than a lecture “because the lectures could go on for a really long time,” Viki Bridge joked.
Although the family moved around the country, New Hampshire was always considered “home” in the Bridge family, Viki Bridge recalled. Every summer, the Bridges would come back to visit extended family or go camping in the White Mountains.
“The goal during our whole lifetime was we were moving back to New Hampshire,” she said, adding that many of the family’s moves placed them closer to that goal.
When Viki was young, Bridge took a retail job in Ohio before then moving the family to Rhode Island, taking a job as vice president of Castle Toy Company, where he helped design toys.
“That wasn’t until until my brother and me were in high school and probably couldn’t have cared less what he did for a living at that point,” Viki Bridge said.
When the toy company went bankrupt in 1980, Bridge saw it as an opportunity to come back. He purchased a 50-acre parcel in Unity in 1983 along Lear Hill Road where he could enjoy the outdoors.
“His favorite thing in the world was to walk in the woods,” Viki Bridge said. “From the time he was a child, it was his favorite thing.”
Bridge also joined the Unity Conservation Commission, and placed a portion of his property under a conservation easement.
“He was actually quite enthusiastic about conservation work,” said commission member Stanley Rastallis.
Bridge would ride horses near the town forest and helped maintain some of the trails, he said. Toward the end of his life he also donated a chainsaw and mower so the commission could continue that work.
“He firmly believed that we should do things that we could do here as opposed to seeking outside help,” Rastallis said.
Bridge also continued to work on toys. Through his company, Yankee Ingenuity, he designed and built prototypes for Hasbro and Coleco. Bridge also worked part-time at the Home Depot in Claremont.
Beverly Bridge also worked. With a longtime love of crafts, she opening Daisey’s Crafts in Claremont and West Lebanon before going on to work as a paraprofessional at the Richards Schools in Newport shortly before her death in 2012.
Bridge was also heavily involved in Republican politics after moving to the Granite State, joining the Sullivan County Republican Committee, which he eventually chaired.
Smith, the Charlestown legislator, first met Bridge while working on former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson’s 2008 presidential primary campaign.
“It was interesting because Ernie was one of the oldest people I interacted with, but the very first to adopt new methods and new ideas,” Smith said.
Many state legislators are older and often take up politics after retirement, Smith said, joking that it can be a challenge for them to adopt to technology newer than the rotary phone. But Bridge wasn’t like that, he said.
Bridge’s reaction to social media advertising was “that’s cool,” Smith said, adding he was never embarrassed to ask questions when adopting new campaign techniques.
Bridge wasn’t averse to hard work too and would never leave something unfinished, Smith recalled.
“He challenged people around him not to keep doing things the same way, but to try new things,” he said.
After years of advocacy work Bridge was elected in 2014 to represent Unity and Newport in the House, where he served for two years.
Bridge largely voted with conservatives in the Legislature, according to the House voting record.
He opposed the creation of a sales tax, the implementation of common core education standards and a minimum wage increase. Bridge also supported repeal of the state’s concealed carry law, which does away with permitting requirements, along with so-called right-to-work legislation, which would have prevented unions from charging fees to nonmembers for the cost of collective bargaining.
Bridge did vote on bipartisan bills backing marijuana reform, backing creation of the state’s therapeutic cannabis program, as well as attempts to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana.
Most of those votes were in 2015, and Bridge was largely absent from the chamber during 2016, the voting record shows.
That’s partially because he suffered a “small leak” in his lung just prior to the start of the session and required a portable oxygen container to help breathe outside his home. Initially, he was told by House leaders that the briefcase-size device wasn’t allowed to accompany him to his seat, saying it blocked emergency routes.
“I just kind of let it go” and went home, Bridge told the Valley News at the time. But after other legislators advocated on his behalf, Bridge was given a seat in the back of the chamber and allowed to signal his votes to the House clerk.
Bridge was also involved in the Sullivan County delegation, members of the House that oversee the county’s budget.
“He was very invested in the county,” remembers state Rep. Virginia Irwin, D- Newport, who also represents Unity as part of the floterial Sullivan District 6 seat.
Although he wasn’t a member of the county’s finance committee, she said, Bridge attended almost every meeting. He was also known for sending very thoughtful emails to the delegation as they tackled tough issues.
“We were on different political sides but he was always very thoughtful, very respectful and very funny,” Irwin said. “He had a great sense of humor.”
She went on to describe Bridge as “unassuming in very many ways,” saying he was the type of person she could have a political conversation with and come away knowing there would be mutual respect.
“Ernie was a great guy. He had an old Yankee sense of humor,” said Rep. Skip Rollins, R-Newport, who also represents Unity in the House.
Rollins described Bridge as a “gentleman,” someone who did what he thought was right and always followed through on promises.
“He was a polite guy who cared a lot about the people in Newport/Unity district,” Rollins said. “He cared a lot about his constituents.”
As his health worsened, Bridge withdrew from public politics, declining to run for reelection.
At home, he enjoyed the company of his silky terrier named Moxie, who Viki Bridge calls “ferocious.” The dog once bit a Valley News photographer who came to take Bridge’s portrait.
Bridge maintained an active presence on social media, though, opining about current events and the impact of humans on the environment.
Population growth was a longtime concern of Bridge, who began writing about it in the 1960s, according to Viki Bridge, his daughter.
“It is my dying hope that the next two generations will realize that our world is limited and that human population will realize that (the) human population has surged beyond our earth’s capacity,” he wrote in his last Facebook post.
“He was in total control at the end of his life,” Viki Bridge said of her father’s last days in hospice care. “He had a plan of how he was going to live out his life and he had a plan that he was done living.”
Shortly before his death, Bridge decided to stop eating and drinking. Both Viki Bridge, who was living in Rome, and her brother flew into Boston, traveling to see him at hospice, where they all shared memories together.
At the end of their visit, he told family “I’m going to go to bed and I don’t want to wake up in the morning,” Viki Bridge said. “And he didn’t.”
She said her father was vague on his religious beliefs as his children grew up, allowing them to make up their minds as adults.
But as his health deteriorated, Bridge began to open up about his beliefs, she said, adding he did believe in heaven.
“I believe that heaven is the place where we all rejoin the people we loved, who have gone before us,” Bridge wrote on Facebook shortly before his death. “I look forward to rejoining my wife, Beverly, who shared 53 good years with me, much of it here in New Hampshire.”
“I love Beverly and I love New Hampshire, and I imagine heaven, for us, will be here in New Hampshire,” Bridge wrote.
Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com or 603-727-3223.