Paula

          These last few weeks, I have been interviewing residents at the retirement home where I work, seeking to know their stories. It has been a privilege to hear each story, and a few residents have given me written permission to share their stories with all of you. This is an exercise in writing for me - if you have any questions or comments, please let me know!

           1927. In Illinois, a half mile from Wisconsin, a soon to be mother lay in a farmhouse, too stubborn to go to the nearby hospital. The birth was long and hard, and once Paula was born, there would be no more children. Her husband put his foot down; his wife would not risk that again. That farm was Paula’s grandparents’ farm, a place she fondly remembers visiting every summer, spending 3 months in the backcountry of Illinois each year until she reached age of 10. 

            Soon after Paula was born, her parents moved off the farm and into the nearby town, Freeport. Her dad worked for Montgomery Wards, a department store, as a salesman, and that move was the first of many. His job required him to move every two years, and up until high school she never spent more than 3 years in one place. She began school in the 1^st grade, walking to school by herself down a busy road every day. That same year, Paula’s muscular dystrophy showed up, but in 1933, no one could diagnose it. She remembers clearly that it was her muscular dystrophy that caused her to hate her first grade teacher. When the kids started to get antsy, the teacher would get them down on the ground and have them waddle around the classroom. Try as she might, and try as the teacher might to teach her, Paula simply could not waddle, and so she hated her teacher.

            After 1^st grade, she moved to Chicago Heights for a couple years, and then moved again, switching schools each time. She recalls, laughing, the time her PE class was taught to line dance and the boys knocked her down fighting for her hand. It was hard to move schools so often. Frequently, she was either behind or ahead the class she entered, having to either study hard to catch up or stuck being bored in class. Imagine having to teach yourself how to subtract because the rest of the class has already been taught!

            Through all her family’s moves, her music was the one thing that remained with her. Early in elementary school, she was handed a violin, and she took to it “as a duck takes to water,” in her own words. Not 6 months after she began playing, the local high school orchestra teacher invited her to play with them at the upcoming world fair. She went and played her three songs at the Chicago World Fair: Century of Progress (1933-1934) but at the age of 7 she wasn’t impressed by the grand setting. Once her songs were finished, Paula looked at the conductor as if to say, “Can I go now?” and stepped right off that stage, to both laughter and applause. From 3^rd grade to 6^th grade, her family was in Kenosha, Illinois, the longest she ever spent in one town, and she played 1^st violin in a string quartet. From there they moved to Jainesville for her 7^th and 8^th grade years, and music remained a constant.

            When she was in 8^th grade, Paula’s parents decided they wanted stop moving and find a store of their own. The family settled in Port Washington, Wisconsin. Finally, Paula spent not just two years in one place but also all of high school with the same people, as well as part of 8^th grade. Her high school was too small to have an orchestra, so she learned to play the oboe and joined band. She actually joined in 8^th grade, before she became a high school student, because the band so needed an oboe player. She didn’t abandon her violin, however, and participated in contests often. She had a different boyfriend every year – one year was enough with each guy – and so was able to go to all four proms. She graduated from high school placed at #2 in her grade, just missing #1 by the smallest amount (“But it doesn’t matter,” she says).

After high school, Paula began her studies at Oberlin College and Conservatory of Music in Ohio, a college her parents picked for her with the influence of her violin teacher. College was a very different experience. At home, Paula had never done more on her own than travel to her violin lessons in Milwaukee. At the age of 19, though, off she went by herself to college; her parents never even saw the campus. She boarded a train and began her next phase of life. She was in her sophomore year when she met Jerry, her future husband. He had been an oboe player in the Navy band in Hawaii and was a year older than her, although a year behind in school. The summer between sophomore and junior year of college, he came home with her to meet her parents, and Paula and Jerry were married that September. After one more semester at Oberlin, both decided to quit school. He got a job at a hardware store, she at a dime store. They rented a small bedroom and sitting room for a while, but soon they went home to her parents, who hired him. A year later, Sue was born, the first of two daughters. 15 years passed by gently and then another 8 after they moved down to Chilton, Wisconsin to own their own hardware store.

By this time Sue and Polly, her daughters, were grown and out of the house. After 25 years working in a hardware store, Jerry thought he wanted to be a preacher/missionary, but that fell through. Paula and Jerry moved to Humansville, Missouri for 4 years, and, while there, Jerry became interested in some less-than-Christian things. He had always wanted to make a lot of money, and things got worse between the two of them. After 30 years, he divorced her. That was June. Paula, in her own words, was a basket case after the divorce. But, looking back, she credits the Lord. She had been a Christian before then, going to church, teaching Sunday school, but she was only halfway there. It wasn’t until she hit rock bottom in the middle of the divorce, however, that she looked up and surrendered. She was born again into new life with Jesus. She praises Him, too, for saving her from the difficult man that Jerry became in the years following. He turned mean towards his family, hard to cope with, but she missed all of that.

In September, on her 51^st birthday, at a meeting of Parents without Partners, Paula met George. He was a good man, a good person. The two of them spent the next 29 years traveling the country in an RV. They traveled up through New England, went through Canada, went to Big Ben country in Texas. She liked most of where they went, could see herself settling in any of the places they visited, but didn’t have one specific favorite place. In the years where they were settled, she became a teacher of music teachers. Education had always been her dream, and so she followed it. She oversaw the music programs in 11 schools in Risain, Missouri for 3 or 4 years and also taught 6^th and 7^th grade music until she was 65. By the end of those years, they had moved to Salem, Oregon to be closer to family. When George died in 2006, Paula then followed her family up to Washington, which is where I have had the privilege of meeting her.

Her advice to me: Trust in the Lord. If He brings these things to you, they’re from Him, and He has good purpose.