LEBANON — Richard Courtemanche kept to a simple — and sometimes arduous — routine during his roughly 70-year-long career cutting hair in Lebanon.
Each morning, he’d be up before dawn for a more than three-mile walk up Hanover Street, past Lebanon High School and then down Route 120.
The journey, which saw Courtemanche brave rain and snowstorms alike, would end at the Lebanon Mall, where he’d ready his barbershop for a 7 a.m. opening.
Courtemanche would first get to work on the businessmen, police officers — who favored flat tops — and workers hoping for a trim before their morning shifts. Then, a steady stream of families and regulars would fill his chair, with the sound of clippers accompanied by a Rex Sox game called on the radio or Monday-through-Friday broadcasts of Paul Harvey’s The Rest of the Story.
While his work sometimes wasn’t complete until 8 p.m., Courtemanche still took house calls to those unable to make the trip downtown and lent his services to nursing homes, boys camps and anyone who asked.
Throughout most of his career up until January, haircuts cost $5 apiece.
“If customers wanted to come in before they went to work, he wanted to accommodate them,” said Courtemanche’s eldest son David. “He didn’t have hours. He would go in when he knew he would get customers in early. He would stay late when they needed him to stay late.”
The barber, who started cutting hair just after World War II, was known by many to be just as skilled with scissors and a straight razor as he was conversing with longtime patrons.
“They weren’t just customers. They were his friends,” said Courtemanche’s youngest son Mark, who worked with his father for two years. “I remember seeing the line. There would be 20, 25 people standing there waiting to get a haircut from him.”
It’s that deep commitment to customers, along with a quick wit, easy-going attitude and knowledge of all things Lebanon, that people say they’ll miss after Courtemanche died on Nov. 2, 2020, at age 94.
Courtemanche was born into a family of Lebanon barbers on April 6, 1926. His father, Clifton Courtemanche, and uncles owned a barbershop in the city while his mother Loudivine worked in the nearby mills.
A devout Catholic, Courtemanche attended the Sacred Heart School as a child where he met his best friend Gordon Plummer.
“He was a real nice, level headed man,” said Plummer, who recalled that the two would ride bikes and fish together. Sometimes, Plummer added, Courtemanche’s father would drop them off at Crystal Lake, where they’d swim during hot summer days.
The two friends went to Lebanon High School together, where they played the clarinet in the marching band. After graduation in 1944, they joined the armed forces and were sent overseas — Courtemanche joined the Army and was shipped off to Europe while Plummer went into the Navy.
Courtemanche served under Gen. George S. Patton and served mainly as a sentry, guarding railroads and other installations, according to David Courtemanche.
“He said the biggest thing he remembered about the whole thing was the trip over and the trip back on the boat,” David Courtemanche said.
His father suffered from seasickness and the boat carrying him home broke down on the journey, with added misery when the captain refused to let soldiers off during repairs.
After arriving home, Courtemanche married his high school sweetheart Katherine and used the G.I. bill to attend barber school. He joined the family business in 1948, working alongside his father, two uncles and his brother Gordon.
Courtemanche ultimately purchased the family business and moved it into the former Ashey Shoe Store on Hanover Street in December 1963, about six months before a historic fire devastated downtown, taking the barbershop and much of the neighborhood with it.
Courtemanche was midway through a haircut on June 19, 1964, when firefighters burst through the doors and said it was time to evacuate.
“You’ll have to come back and I’ll finish it for you,” David Courtemanche said his father told the customer.
The fire took place on a Friday. The next day, Courtemanche was on the phone with a supply company in Manchester and he was back in business in a new location on Bank Street the following Monday.
“He wanted to rebuild on that spot,” David Courtemanche said of his father’s old Hanover Street shop. “He thought that the main street would remain.”
However, failed negotiations with the nearby railroad and the city’s urban redevelopment effort eventually led Courtemanche to move into the new Lebanon Mall, where he became one of its longest-running businesses.
For years, the barbershop was frequented by members of the Lebanon Police Department before the force moved from City Hall to its current home on Poverty Lane.
“Trying to get my haircut on my shift work was tough. So after 7 p.m., I’d go over there and sit at the barbershop,” said Joe Porreca, who joined the police force in 1985 and retired in 2005. “Nobody’s cut my hair since.”
Porreca said he often referred to Courtemanche as his “history teacher” because of his institutional memory of the city’s workings. The barber, he said, seemed to know before anyone else the city’s street paving schedule and could regale customers with old stories about the oldest roadways.
At the same time, Courtemanche was “very down to earth” and cared deeply for his customers, Porreca said.
Rich Parker, a former professional golfer and Dartmouth College’s former men’s golf coach, also became a regular. His grandfather and father went to Courtemanche for their haircuts, and so his arrival in the barber’s chair was expected.
“I would keep leaving town, go to play golf, I’d come back and the one constant was always Courte,” he said, referring to Courtemanche by his nickname.
“He was so humble. He had so much knowledge. He should have been a historian for Lebanon,” Parker said, adding that Courtemanche often demurred from public roles, preferring instead to help in the background.
Both Parker and David Courtemanche recalled the barber’s quick wit at the barbershop.
Although it was common for him to tell the same joke several times, he was also known to throw customers a sharp remark.
David Courtemanche said his father was once asked by a balding customer whether he could receive a discount because of their lack of hair.
“I was thinking of charging you a little extra to look for it,” Courtemanche retorted.
Parker said the jokes could sometimes be self-deprecating, and Courtemanche later in life would jest, rightfully so, that “I’ve come to realize my mistakes grow back.”
Courtemanche entered semi-retirement in 1991 but continued cutting hair in his home until Jan. 16.
In retirement, Courtemanche took an interest in the Soldiers Memorial Building, the 1890 downtown landmark that serves as a memorial to veterans of all wars. He joined the Soldiers Memorial Building Advisory Board and served on the Lebanon Heritage Commission for several years.
Bob Therrien, the building’s guardian, described Courtemanche as “very reliable” and dedicated to upkeep of the memorial.
Courtemanche would often open it up to tours when Therrien wasn’t available and took on an instrumental role in preparing for commemorations, such as Memorial and Veterans days.
“He was always upbeat and very careful to make sure everything was the way we wanted it,” Therrien said. “He didn’t take any short cuts. He always made sure things were done the right way.”
Mark Courtemanche said his father’s retirement also brought out his softer side. His father was somewhat of a disciplinarian but opened up as he got older.
“For his generation, the words ‘I love you’ wasn’t spoken,” he said. “But during the last couple of years of his life, he used to tell my mom that he loved her.”
“He’d say it quietly. He didn’t realize that I could hear it,” Mark Courtemanche said. “It was really heartwarming to hear him say those words.”
Katherine died in August and Courtemanche sometimes spoke of how he wanted to again be reunited, said Parker, who also noticed a change during the barber’s retirement. The couple were married 72 years.
In recent years, Parker he spent more time talking to Courtemanche after his appointments, catching up and reminding him of the old stories he used to hear inside the barbershop on the Lebanon Mall.
“It’s a shame that nobody got to know him but just a few of us,” Parker said. “He gave millions of haircuts but if you got to know him, you just loved him.”
Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com or 603-727-3223.