The Forum

Issue date: 2/23/10 Section: Feature

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Leland, "Lee for short," Paxton's first car was a 1928 Ford. Now he owns a 1995 four door Lexus coupe and although time may have rendered him unable to drive, he still enjoys rides up the canyon to his hometown, Park City. Lee has done to life what a Model-A Ford has done to the road-traveled, traversed and toured the sometimes intimidating terrain.

When Lee was 13, he received a blessing. He said it was, "you will live a long life and see many changes." Certainly the blessing has since come to fruition.

Lee, like so many students graduating this year, graduated in a tumultuous economy. To give a glimpse into the finances of the late 1920s, early '30s, the first house Lee lived in was the one his father built on Park Avenue in Park City for a total cost of approximately $2,500. The house had a coal stove, coal fireplace and outhouse out back. Houses in this neighborhood are now appraised from $500,000 to $1 million.

Lee remembers Westminster as a two-year junior college, where tuition (room and board included) cost less than $100 per month and according to Lee, the college was never short on honey because one student paid tuition with jars of the yellow molasses. Lee lived in Foster Hall and waited tables in the café earning 25 cents-a day. Today, a work-study student employee can make upwards of $8-an hour.

Remembering Westminster

Converse. Payne. Foster. These were some of the primary buildings on campus when Lee attended. Now, as he puts it, "the college is inch to inch, bumper to bumper," with buildings and "beautiful walks."

Students weren't allowed to leave campus, but Lee remembers some students walking over to the creek to smoke and talk. School dances were held in Payne and chaperoned by professors. Lee, who was too short to play football, was the waterboy for the team and remembers receiving a 'W' patch for his work.

Since his time at the college, Lee has purchased a brick with his name on it, which can be found among other graduate names, decorating the back patio of the Alumni House. Lee has also since attended dinners and meetings where he was invited to sit at the head table with the president of the, now, Liberal Arts college. And the college does its part in making sure Lee stays connected to the campus community. Lee has a backlogged stack of invitational, greeting and thank you cards thicker than a college textbook postmarked from Westminster mounting on his desk.

After attending Westminster, Lee traveled, by train, to the University of Kansas where he enrolled in the ROTC.

After returning to Park City from Kansas, Lee got a job working for the Jerome Paxton insurance agency. Lee was a business major in college and eventually took over the insurance company. Then, in May of 1941, construction on Lee's current house began.

The Frames on the Wall: The Visual Metaphor for the Memories of the Mind

The tangible evidence of memories in the quietly quaint, almost antiquated, stoplight-yellow trimmed, wedding-white house, which Lee built by hand, serve both to remind Lee of a life lived and to give friends, family and guests a unique view through a window into the past.

"Ask him about that picture on the wall, ask him," implores Lee's youngest child of three, Carol. A wrinkled, creased, obviously handled, a bit ripped at the edges, treasured and framed portrait of a women wearing a bull-black blouse and cap is a 1939 chalk caricature of Lee's late wife, Zella.

The sketch was from their honeymoon at the San Francisco Worlds Fair. The portrait hangs from one of the kitchen walls where Lee eats and spends some of his days "piecing together the headlines." The rug she knit lays adjacent to the fireplace in the room next door. The memories they shared are speckled throughout the house.

Boy met girl at a dinner in a boarding house in downtown Salt Lake City. Lee remembers it as a family-style gathering where all the tables were occupied. He saw a girl waiting for a seat, went over and put his finger down the slip of her dress, he said. "She looked around and said, 'Who's that smart guy?'" That smart guy would later become her husband of 71 years. The couple have 11 grandchildren and 18 (and counting) great-grandchildren.

In a prepared statement, Lee said, "As I reflect on my life, I must honestly say that it has been good. When I realize that I did not preplan my career, I cannot help but feel that I have been blessed…Perhaps my greatest blessing has been my family. My wife, Zella, our three children and the 11 wonderful grandchildren have brought me great joy. I am proud of each one of them."

Despite an approaching 97th birthday in July, Lee said he has to live two more years. Carol was corroborating on story with Lee from when they visited Zella's gravesite. Lee had recently purchased a phone, and while at the burial-grounds he told Zella he wouldn't be with her for at least two more years. "…Because I bought the warranty," he said. As evidenced in a report card from the 1920s, Lee has "too much foolishness."

Carol said Lee knows every bakery in every state and city. When Lee was 12 he received a gold signet ring from a bakery where he worked. He still wears it to this day. Carol attributes Lee's longevity to "the cookies."

Lee said the toughest part of growing old for him was the loss of his eyesight. "Maybe you'd be cuter if you weren't a shadow, Walter," he said laughing with a grin on his face.

After a series of interviews, Lee said, "You'll have to put at the end of your article, 'P.S. it's been fun.' We've gone from here to there and from there to here."

Lee has been traveling through life with the bright lights beaming forward. His tachometer might have tallied more miles than the car in his garage, but for a mechanic who pumped 'pane when gas was 25 cents a gallon, the engine is still humming, the tires are still spinning and the sparkplugs still igniting.

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