She's Back!

I can now sit at my computer without my body screaming for a cigarette. So I am back. I still haven't caved in and bought cigarettes, and if I have gone this long, I expect that I won't. I will own up to taking one drag off someone's cigarette - just one drag - but the funny thing was that I didn't want any more. I am liking this being able to breathe and not cough thing. Been a long time since I could climb the stairs to our apartment without wheezing. So I believe that I will continue on this course. Thank you all for your support. It has helped more than you can know.

I have two scrapbook pages for you today.

The first is of David and his family. They took a road trip over Memorial Day weekend to the North Shore, and this page is of them at Gooseberry Falls. He said that the kids really enjoyed the trip.

I have always loved a good road trip. While I still had a car, I found it necessary for my health and well being to take an occasional road trip. Sometimes there was a destination and sometimes not. Didn't matter. What mattered was getting away from the monotony of everyday life.

I think I get this little bit of wanderlust from my Dad. He loved to just get in the car and drive. Didn't matter where. He just liked to drive. Most times our family road trips were confined to less than 100 miles in any direction. Sometimes we would go to Benson to shop. Other times we would just wander the countryside, stopping perhaps at an old schoolhouse just to snoop around or play on the playground equipment. Or maybe we would wind up at Ronnie and Em's in time for cake and coffee.

Once we stopped at an old schoolhouse. There was a swing set that included a trapeze. Dad was showing off. He often showed off for Mom. It tickles me to think that after all of the years they were together, Dad would still try to impress her. Anyway, Dad was showing off by doing chin-ups on the trapeze. He was doing really well. Had done five or six chin-ups, when something went awry. Maybe his hands slipped or maybe he just was so busy showing off to Mom that he didn't pay attention. Anyway, as he lowered himself from that particular chin-up, he caught the bottom of his nose on the trapeze. It made sort of a crunching sound. And then bled like a stuck hog. A couple of handkerchiefs and an old towel from the trunk later, he got the bleeding stopped. We went home. Dad was grumpy. Mom didn't say a word. In later years he would tell this story on himself, laughing and saying that's what he got for being a show-off.

Once we started a rambling drive and wound up near Granite Falls. We explored the river bank, finding driftwood that Mom took home to use in some craft project, and clam shells as large as a salad plate. The bank was more muddy than sandy, and Libby and I wound up covered in mud to our knees. We explored most of the day, stopping to eat a picnic lunch that Mom had fixed before leaving home. It was a fun Sunday afternoon. I miss road trips.

http://www.4shared.com/file/49190153/63d8b740/Shes_Back.html

The second scrapbook page is of Mom's father, Andrew Jackson Paul and his siblings. They are standing left to right: Walter Eugene Paul (m. Maud Ethal Mandery), Melvin Curtis Paul (m. Bessie Mabel McNab), Grace Vedder Paul (m. George Potts Watson), Clara Lydia Paul (m. Arnold August Pfenninger), Andrew Jackson Paul (m. first Harriet Lucina Felt and 2nd, Gladys Adell Morehouse [my Grandmother]) and Arthur Brayton Paul (m. Lillian Caroline Felt [sister to Andrew's first wife]}.

Walter was the youngest of these children of Hollis Brayton Paul and Adella Caroline Curtis Paul, and was the one in the family who seems to have been the most interested in preserving the Paul family history. (I have added the names of the spouses to make it easier to identify some of the people mentioned in the letters).

One by one Walter's brothers and sisters left home, but stayed in touch with the rest of the family through the writing of letters, as did other members of the family. Over the years, Walter saved many of these letters and his son, Kenneth transcribed them. I find them fascinating. They give a peek into what life was like for these ancestors of my Mother.

I am including in the Zip file the 60 letters that Kenneth sent to me, just as I received them. I particularly liked the ones written by my Grandfather, as they shed a little light on his personality. There is at least one written by my Great-Grandmother Adella. When put in chronological order, these letters are kind of a timeline of the lives of the Paul family in the late 1800s and early 1900s. I hope you find them interesting.