THE PAULL- PATTON FAMILY STORY

The following story was taken down by Barbara Patton as told to her by Helen Paull Patton Paranish, age 92. (Barbara is Helen's daughter-in-law.)

Our family history started in Budapest Hungary, where both my parents were born. My father's name was Joseph Fault, my mother was Theresa Seman. They migrated to the United States, at different times, around the turn of the century. They later met in the states when my Dad [to be] became a boarder in my mother's home. My parents moved from Wymer, a little town about seven miles from Clymer at the time (no longer on Atlas map) and around 1909 settled in Sample Run with two of their children, Joseph Jr. and Jacqueline. Eight more children were later born, all in Sample Run, Margaret in 1906, Ellen 1911, Helen 1913, John 1915. Andy 1918, Mary 1920, Irvin 1922, and Irma in 1925. Coal mining was the only way the families in Sample Run made their living, and my Dad worked in these coal mines until he was killed in cave-in on February 13, 1930. My oldest brother Joseph Jr. died July 15, 1926, in the coal mines when a ten ton rock fell, killing him instantly. He was just nineteen, and this happened just weeks before the big explosion on August 26, 1926. I was at Neely's Drug Store with a couple of my sisters when someone came in and told the pharmacist that young Joe Paull was just killed in the mines. He was my big brother, so thoughtful and a joy to have around. When I was about eleven or twelve, I remember taking some red chalk from school and placing it on the streetcar tracks that ran from Clymer to Indiana. After the streetcar passed by, my sisters and I would scoop us this mashed chalk and rub it on our cheeks for rouge. At the time we had little money and rouge cost about thirty cents. When Joe saw us walking back from the tracks all painted and 'beautiful," he said, "Oh! You girls don't need ail that stuff on your face to look pretty. You're pretty just {he way you are." He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped it off of our faces. Needless to say, that day, he wasn't such a joy to be around. Back then it was customary for anyone who had died to be laid out in their homes. They usually rested there for three days and then were buried. It was terrible when Mine Number One exploded on August 26, 1926, kitting 44 men Out of 57 men working that day only 13 survived. Many homes had two of their loved ones resting in parlors. Flooding was another problem we usually had in the Spring when the ice jams would melt Some of the neighbors checked on each other by using rowboats to get around. Sharing what little you had wasn't anything you thought about; you just did what you could until the water subsided and help could get in for us to get to the stores again. We a/so had hundreds of beautiful Chestnut Trees growing in and around Sample Run and Clymer, and it wasn't unusual to have a pan of chestnuts roasting in the oven when we came home from school. A blight later destroyed most of them. I never heard of anyone having any kind of a swimming pool, so we did most of our swimming in a sulfur creek near our home. Lots of families had what they called "Maladies" and swore that this little creek had healing properties. We would see them soaking in it several times a week. We swam in it just for the fun. I was still in school when I first saw [the man who would become] my husband, Rollie James Patton. I was going door to door for some kind of school fund raiser to collect money, and I think he gave me a dime. It was a couple of years later that a family friend, Andy Gall, brought him over to the house for dinner. We dated for a couple of years and then married at the Methodist Church in Clymer on June 28, 1930. Our first son, Norman James (Jimmy) was born on March 27, 1931, and Robert Rollie was born on October 16, 1932. We lived in Sample Run until we moved to Detroit, Michigan in 1941. My husband Rollie died on September 17, 1959 from Silicosis (black lung disease).

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