Paul Anthony Tschann

Paul was born on June 15, 1920, in Northfield, MN, the 3rd of 4 children. Northfield was and is a college town south of St. Paul. His mother Eda Theodora Louis was a high school teacher (among other things) and his father Frank Joseph Tschann was a banker at the Northfield bank that was famously robbed by the James brothers who were related to my mother Viola. Of course the robbery happened many years before Frank worked there.

Paul’s childhood must have been idyllic: a small town, grandparents nearby (the Tschann’s), intelligent and well-read parents and numerous aunts, uncles and cousins either living nearby or visiting regularly. There were vacations and probably weekend trip to various cabins on numerous lakes where the kids likely fished, swam, and hiked and hunted. Camp-outs in tents were frequent as well, both in the woods and in the families’ large yards in town. The Tschann family was Catholic and Eda had converted at some point in her teens.

Frank Louis was Paul’s elder brother. He was born July 8, 1916. The only girl Jeanne (not sure about her middle name—she used the initial “L”) was born 2 ½ years later and a year and a half before Paul on February 22, 1919. The family was completed in 1924 when William Francis arrived on October 19.

From stories Paul told (some of which were corroborated by Eda,) Frank Joseph shared the “Tschann sense of humor” that I also recognized in stories of Frank Louis and from living around Paul and Bill (Wm. F). It seemed to me to have skipped Jeanne.

Stories about living in Northfield were few in number. Paul did love to relate how his mother packed the kids lunches on Saturday just like during the week. They were told to take off and not to come back until dinner. Like most of my dad’s stories, I took them with a large grain of salt. He also said that Eda could read her books in the middle of chaos with kids all over the place and never say a word or lose her place. Paul’s stories about his father often concerned Christmas and jokes and practical jokes carries out with his best friend Oakey Jackson. Nora Jackson and Eda were close friends also.

Summers meant camping at the many lakes in the area and in the large yards at home. Swimming, fishing, hunting took place as well. Sledding in the winter, of course.

Christmas was a huge deal for the family. Being of mainly German descent, all of the traditions were followed: huge tree; lots of ornaments and tinsel, plenty of presents and so on. As an adult Paul continued those traditions, excluding any that involved snow. Picking out a tree was a time-consuming ritual to find the least flawed tree on the huge lots of fresh trees. But for Paul, that was just the beginning. Only he could arrange the lights and only he could hang the tinsel. Hanging tinsel had many rules: you could only hang one strand at a time and you had to carefully place the first ones towards the interior of the branch so that you could hang others (one at a time, mind you) separately along the branch to the tip. It often took him several evenings to finish the tree, but when it was done, it was truly spectacular. The tinsel reflected all the colors from the lights and the tree sparkled and danced when the air moved the fine, delicate strands of silver. The top-piece was an angel that looked to have seen better days by the time I remember seeing it. No star. It had to be the angel, no matter how shabby she got.

This almost perfect childhood must have changed overnight when Paul’s father died in 1935. He was around 43 years old. He had a stroke while working in the bank. He was taken home where he died several days later. I can only imagine that Paul was devastated by his father’s death. He never talked about it. Nor did Eda. It must have thrown the entire family into a chaotic state. In 1936 Eda moved to California along with her sister May and the 3 younger children. Frank Louis, who was 20, stayed behind. I have grown to believe that there must have been hard feelings between Eda and her in-laws for her to make such a drastic move at a time when she had plenty of family in the mid-west: Kansas and Missouri. Driving from Minnesota to southern California was rugged and dangerous. Roads were mainly dirt, especially over the Rockies and Sierras. The only story that was told about that trip was that Paul drove his mother’s car with Eda in the passenger seat and his Aunt May behind him, both of them screaming at him if he edged to close to the mountain-side or too near the edge on the narrow, rocky roads through the mountains. (There are photos, however, of some of the stops they made on that trek, as best I can tell. They have no notes or information on them so I’m guessing.) I believe they stayed in Long Beach for a while before moving to Anaheim, where Paul and later Bill graduated from Anaheim High School.

Paul and Vi met in 1939 or 40. Details in Vi's bio. Paul was to be drafted, according to an article in the Santa Ana Register dated 11-14-1943, so he signed up for the Army Air Corps where he was trained as an aircraft mechanic. Don’t think he liked the test flights, because he never would fly after he go out of the army. He was stationed around the country: North Carolina, for training and somewhere in Michigan, I believe. He told a story of being transferred to a new base and when he reported to the base CO, it was his father’s best friend from Minnesota Oakey Jackson. Pretty cool. He was never sent overseas and he was always grateful for that.

He and Vi married in March of 44 and I was born in May of 1945 in Fresno where he was stationed. Vi worked at the base. Six weeks later they returned to Anaheim where Paul was discharged.

His first civilian job was as manager of the Western Auto Store in downtown Anaheim. After another daughter Patty, was born, he realized that he wanted more family time, instead of working weekends, so he quit Western Auto and was hired by The Automobile Club of Southern California, now AAA. He took a pay cut, but that's where his values were: family, not money, was his focus. He worked his way up the ranks and eventurally became a district manager and then a time/work analyst.

In 1959, two events changed everything. Daughter Patty became ill with a liver ailment and Frank Joseph Tschann was born in December. He also had health issues, but it was years before there was confirmation that he and his sister suffered from the same issue. Both had a genetic defect in their liver and both were terminal. It was only a question of when. (See their weremember pages: Patricia May Tschann and Frank Joseph Tschann, for details).

From then on, there were at least annual trips into LA to a university liver clinic for "exploratory observations." Patty lived from 1959 to 1972 because of the new drug prednesone, which suppressed many of her symptoms, but cause terrible side effects of its own. She was in and out of school, home-schooled off and on and her life was severely restricted due to her illness. I assume our family life changed considerably too, but more for Paul and Vi than for me. They made our situation seem normal. The part that didn't seem normal to me was my parents having another child when I was 14! The only other person I knew whose parents did such a thing was a Mormon friend at school. Oh, and Uncle Bill and Aunt Barbara, who had been having more kids all along.

The fear that he would not live a long life had haunted Paul since his father's death. He managed to make it into his mid-50's before suffering his first heart attack. He was working for AAA at their main office in Los Angeles near USC. At that time he drove a red VW (a car he swore he'd never own as AAA stats had indicated it to was of the most dangerous cars on the road--thrift won out over fear?) for the hour+ drive each way from Garden Grove.

On a particular afternoon, he left work early due to feeling unwell and drove home. He entered through the garage as was the habit and staggered down the hall into the kitchen where he collapsed into a chair, clutching his chest. Mother immediately picked up the receiver of the pink wall phone and dialed (literally) his doctor. "Take him to the ER at St. Joseph's now," the nurse told her. Luckily, I was there to stay with Frank and Jim while Mother and Daddy got into the big car (64 Chevy?) and headed east to Orange, a half hour or more away, depending on traffic. Mother told me later that Daddy kept saying "Oh snit!" over and over and she was scared he wouldn't last long enough to get help. When she realized she was driving past the small Garden Grove hospital which had an ER, she turned in. Turned out to be a very smart decision! This small local hospital had just gotten a new state-of-the-art cardiac care unit and they managed to save his life. His personal doctor later told him that he never would have made it alive to St. Joe's.

Paul and Vi bought a house in Yucca Valley as a getaway. I believe Daddy would have preferred the mountains instead of the desert, but the elevation would have been difficult for his heart. There were hills nearby and fruit trees on the property and I know he loved his time there. He spent his last few days on earth there for the Thanksgiving holiday. He drove home to Garden Grove and put a pie in the oven then went into the family room to watch golf on TV. The Avon lady came over just as the pie was ready and Daddy served her and Mother pie and coffee. After chatting for a few minutes, he returned to his recliner and golf. Not long after, he suffered his 2nd and final heart attack. He passed in the ambulance.

Paul was not famous, rich or ambitious. Having lived through the depression and WWII, his focus was on having a happy family life and he did his best to make that happen. He was devoted to Vi and I doubt he ever seriously considered any other woman. He was a great dad and I loved him so much. I still miss him.

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