Flowers unfolding we were.
Now, some of us from flowers
to ashes have gone

Paula Gregoire Schwartz passed away on March 3, 2022, after a long battle with Alzheimer’s – a battle she fought with grit and her trademark sense of humor.

Paula was one of five children born to Leo and Kathleen Gregoire and was raised in the Fox Point neighborhood of Providence, Rhode Island. Like many in her generation, however, she was drawn to northern California as a young woman, hitchhiking across the country and eventually landing in the hills of Harris by invitation of her lifetime friend, Ann Shea Graham (another Rhode Islander). Although Paula was to remain in Humboldt County for the rest of her life, she never forgot her Rhode Island roots, nor did she ever quite lose her east coast accent. She took pride in the values of her Irish working-class upbringing and the life lessons learned in her close-knit neighborhood.

It was in the hills of Harris where Paula discovered perhaps unknown resourcefulness and aptitudes. Converting an old hog barn on the Miller Ranch into a livable space, she learned to live with no electricity or indoor plumbing. She also learned how to grow her own food and to master cooking, baking and canning on a woodstove. She even once delivered a baby when her neighbor couldn’t get to a hospital. It was here where her two sons, Green and Jordan, were born and raised. In her poem “Back on the Ranch” Paula captures both the hardships and the joys of living on the land: “… no wood for fire. My small boys and I go scavenging. They watch me pull old fence posts out of the ground…. I am freezing but thaw out when they smile at me. To them we are having a great time overcoming need.”

After a few years of living in the hills Paula and her sons moved to the town of Redway. It was a life filled with more conveniences, but a car wasn’t one of them. Paula was known for walking wherever she needed to go — she was in her 50’s when she got her first driver’s license — and she was easily recognizable by her long red hair (and in later years, her walking companion, a large white dog named Key). It was on her many walks in Redway that Paula would pass by houses built along the river and dream of living in one someday. It was also during the Redway years that she met her future husband, John Schwartz.

John and Paula married in 1995 in a small family ceremony in Mendocino and she moved to his hometown of Fortuna where she would spend the rest of her life. Many years into their marriage, John inherited his family’s summer home (built by his grandfather) – a house on the road by the river in Redway. It was Paula’s dream come true and she spent many happy times there with friends, family – especially grandchildren – and with the new friends she and John made in that little community.

Perhaps the one thing that most defined Paula was her life-long love affair with words. At any early age she learned how words and wit could disarm older and bigger kids. She was known to have ‘the gift of gab’ and could carry on a conversation with anyone. She was a teller of stories and loved to get a laugh out of her audience. But it was in her poetry where she honed her love of language. The owner of many dictionaries, she would research subtle differences in definition and usage, reaching into the roots and origins of words before carefully placing them in her poems. She was disciplined about waking early and writing each morning. In her poem “The Calling” Paula makes clear her commitment to poetry “With concentrated effort I strained my ears through the sieve of the ordinary atmosphere. Heard the sounds of poetry. Resounding faintly far away yet feeling through resonance close by.”

Paula is loved and missed by those who survive her, her husband, John Schwartz, her sons Greenleaf Burns and Jordan Rose, siblings Jeanette Sousa (Butch) and Ricky Gregoire, sister-in-law Linda Russ,brother-in-law Chuck Schwartz (Debbie), nieces and nephews and many friends too numerous to mention. And, of course, her beloved grandchildren: Kira, River, Cadence, Ava, Brandon and Abbie.

The baby in the baba’s eye
The baba in the baby’s eye
Beholding each other in recognition
Of behaviors and predilections
Kin in passing positions
One arriving…one departing

A memorial will be held later this spring. Donations can be made to the Alzheimer’s Association.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Paula Schwartz’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here.