Recollections

 Recollections

My first recollections are of an old rambling farmhouse in the rolling hills of central New York in a neighborhood called Whaupaunaucau town of North Norwich, County of Chenango. The house faced the west with a south front for kitchen and living room. There was an old fireplace and chimney with a dutch oven in the wall. Low sloping ceilings in the chambers, and a long tool, wood and vehicle shed flanking the house at the east end. A cream house and garden behind or on the north side. On the hill or rise just east of the house was an old stone smoke house while south of the house at some distance and also on higher ground stood the long barn having room for both hay and cattle. In front of the house and along the road for a distance stood maple trees and between the house and barn were several scraggly apple trees. Beyond the road to the west there was a strip of meadow or low land with a gravel-bottomed brook running through it.

I remember my father in those days as being a tall, very energetic and quick-moving man with gray eyes and rather sandy hair and "burnside" whiskers covering the cheeks and down to the round of the chin which was clean shaven. This style was named after Gen. Burnside of Civil War fame. Father was always kindly but ever seemed to be in a hurry. Later on I came to know it was due to the constant pressing necessity of trying to support a large family upon a very poor "down east" farm.

Mother was a small, hard working woman with soft black hair, jet black eyes, and a gentle touch and voice. Even then it seems that a look of tiredness had begun to creep into the soft contour of her face which deepened as the years went by.

Of my brothers and sisters there was at that time Melvin and Arthur, hard working youths just approaching the early years of manhood. Sister Grace, a girl of 12, mother's helper and my constant companion. Then there is the faint recollection of an infant sister of only a few months named Alice May. I had hardly become conscious of life before I gazed upon death because Alice May slipped away one Easter morning to be with the angels. I didn't know the meaning of tears upon Mother's face or why the house had become so quiet. We all sat in the front room with many relatives and a strange man in a black coat. Father held me in his arms as he sat beside what I thought to be a strange bed in which Alice May lay and from time to time I asked him to hold me up so that I might see her face. That face soon faded from my childish mind as other things began to occupy my attention.

The world can never look so great to me today as it did that first horizon upon which I gazed. How surprising the multitude of mental pictures that remain upon the walls of memory after more than half a century. Grandfather Paul lived about half a mile down the valley in an old-fashioned house surrounded by trees on the west side of the road. There was where one might always find Grandma Paul and one day I sat out upon a journey in that direction, all unbeknown to the rest of the family as I thought. Hardly half of the distance had been covered before I discovered I was being watched from the rear. Faithful sister Grace had discovered the fugitive before I had gotten out of sight and followed afar off to see that no harm might befall me. At last I trudged into the yard at Grandmother's place rather proud of my achievement, but with the sensation that I was being watched. Grandmother Paul was a rather tall woman with white hair, very quiet spoken and of a very calm disposition. Never do I remember of hearing or seeing an excited word or gesture. A low kindly laugh when she was amused and a keen and active interest in the subject of every conversation. Later in my boyhood years a picture of Martha Washington, the wife of George Washington, would always bring up recollections of my Grandmother Paul. How near the similarity I cannot now say.

Grandfather Paul, the grandson of the Revolutionary Paul was the opposite in disposition, temperament and behavior. A silent man, often of gloomy and dour demeanor; one who lived within himself and in many ways a stranger to those who were nearest to him. His likes and dislikes, his affections and hatreds alike locked up within his own breast. Doomed always to be feared by some and misunderstood by all, a victim of his own peculiar personality, he suffered in silence on account of this complex from which he was never able to free himself. During my boyhood years I can remember some little attentions from him which were no doubt tokens of a kindly nature so long bottled up within him. I was as shy and timid in receiving these attentions as he evidently was in bestowing them. Perhaps this stern man that belongs to a past century will appear again in these pages. In the springtime of this first year of my recollection (1885-1886).

Andrew J. Paul