The greatest I ever met
A tribute column to my great uncle Stan Paulson
By Curtis Haugan
The earliest memory I have of my great Uncle Stan is also one of the most terrifyingly fun experiences of my childhood.
Snug against the passenger side window of his Suzuki 4X4, he took my little brother and me on a rip up the winding, perilous road to the top of Judah Hill.
When you’re five-years-old, everything seems to be a little bit more intense than it really is. So with the guardrail only a foot away from the vehicle’s tires, I peered over the dark valley cliff, as he threw it into third gear.
I couldn’t believe we didn’t crash through it. And I was not at all reassured by the smirk on his face, slightly illuminated by the dashboard light.
We came home and my brother and I explained in great kindergarten detail how close we came to death. Mom and Dad humoured us, and the smirk on Uncle Stan’s face was merely reinforced by it all.
Almost 20 years, and a few moves around the country later, there are family members I have gotten to know better than my great uncle Stan Paulson, but none I admire more.
He passed away last Wednesday.
After years of missionary work around Asia and Africa, teaching school and working on other improvements for communities and their children, he began to get weak.
It turned out to be the neurodegenerative disease, ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Uncle Stan moved to the Peace Country from Fort MacMurray after graduating from the University of Saskatchewan in the early 1960’s. Prior to entering University, Uncle Stan had been a minister in two Pentecostal churches serving in the small towns of Ardmore and Craigmyle, Alberta.
He and his wife, the former Hilda Frank were married in 1955. It was a double wedding. My grandpa married my grandma on the same day, at the same church in Kindersley, Saskatchewan.
The pictures are funny from that day.
Because the suits were of the same style and make, and because both my grandpa and my uncle Stan were relatively the same height, and because generally any prairie boy who grew up in the Dust Bowl had never worn a suit before his wedding day, they, as a consequence of those facts, wore each other’s clothes by accident.
What resulted was a classic case of suit too small, and suit too big.
When he arrived in the Peace Country with his newly minted Masters of Education degree, he began his career at Manning elementary as their Principal. He had worked hard over several summers working on his masters degree at the University of Oregon in Eugene; faithfully hauling the entire family down south and living in a holiday trailer all summer.
After years in Manning, he was promoted to deputy superintendent of the Peace River School Division. He and my great auntie Hilda lived in south Peace River for decades.
When Hilda passed away in 1993, he remained in Peace River, but spent much time around the world working for missionary organizations.
I sat down with Pastor Wes Graw of Christian Life Assembly Church in Peace River, who was a pupil of my great uncle’s during his tenure as Manning Elementary principal, and asked him what he remembered of uncle Stan.
“Well,” he said. “It was a long time ago, but there was one thing, and I don’t really know what to make of it. We were at the lunch table –I must have been no older than Grade 4 or Grade 5 – and I reached across him to grab something and he bit me.”
“He bit you?”
“Yeah, he bit me. I mean it was just playful, and meant to surprise me, but still.”
“What did you think of that?” I asked.
“I thought it was pretty cool. He was my Principal. I definitely have always thought twice before reaching across the table for things.”
A testament to his sense of humour, and his passion for teaching children all things – even proper manners – there was something students saw in their principal.
“He was the perfect authority figure,” recalled Graw
“You never wanted to cross him, but you felt you could have told him anything. The world is missing men like him.”
The thing that I, and everyone who truly ever knew him, admire most is how crystal clear he made his purpose on earth; to love people the way he knew Jesus Christ loved him.
There was a nature in him that was, by all accounts, divine. He was unfailingly kind and thoughtful, and had a well-earned reputation in the Peace River region as a perfect gentleman in every sense of that word.
And even though in his final days, when his body had been reduced to a shadow of his former self, and he needed the assistance of machines to help him breathe I have been told there was a calm about him. Maybe even an expectation, the way someone gets when they’re near the end of work, or school.
“I’m going home,” I’ve been told he said.
And despite the sadness that my family feels for our beloved Uncle Stan, we can’t help but feel like he is doing just that.
Maybe the famous British preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon said it best.
“Oh, it is wonderful how these pilgrims do when they come to die! They may tremble when they live, but they do not tremble when they die. The weakest of them becomes the strongest then.”
We may miss him, but none of us have any question to where we will find him.
Uncle Stan just went home.
