POINT PLEASANT BEACH — Seventy-eight years ago, an English teenager arrived in Point Pleasant Beach during the cold of winter after the fighting of World War II.
That woman, Pauline Mickle, turned 95 on Saturday, when loved ones gathered to celebrate her birthday. Along with family and friends, the borough’s first responders — including firefighters, police and paramedics — congregated on Forman Avenue to take part in a parade on her behalf.
When asked to reflect and give one word to sum up her relationship with her home, Point Beach, Pauline Mickle told The Ocean Star that she feels “fortunate.”
“We’re discussing two words that actually keep coming to mind: ‘lucky’ and ‘blessed,’” she said. “We feel there should be something in the middle, and we came up with ‘fortunate.’ But, more than that, I’m overwhelmed, because I’m just a very ordinary person who hasn’t done anything extraordinary in life.”
However fortunate, and however extraordinary, Pauline sat down with The Ocean Star to tell the story of how she got from Northumberland, England to Point Pleasant Beach. She gave her first impression of New Jersey after arriving at Ellis Island by boat in 1947, to live with her aunt and uncle.
“I was leaving my homeland, and coming over here to people that I had never met — who I appreciated — but I had never met them before,” she said. “It was terrible weather over in England right then… When I left England, there was snow coming down, and rain and wind; it was very depressing. And then to arrive here — the sun was shining on the harbor because (we) came by boat. Everything was bright, shiny and sunny; and it somehow didn’t seem quite right, that it should be that way.”
“The first thing I did was arrange so that, when I had my children, they could become citizens,” said Pauline. “It’s very important to be a part of where you’re going to. My aunt and uncle had lost their son in the second World War — he was the only child, and he was in the Marines. He died, and they had just lost him very shortly before I came over here. And the thing was to try and be as nice and correct as I could be to them.”
An avid reader, early on Pauline Mickle attempted to secure a job at the library. However, the position required six years of schooling. Instead, she opted for a job selling books at Steinbach department store in Asbury Park.
“I came over at 17,” she said. “One of the first things I did was go to the library, and said, ‘Can I have a job here?’ And they said, ‘Oh, no, you have to have six years of college;’ so, that was the end of that. I had just gotten out of high school, then I went up to Asbury Park to Steinbach, where they had a nice book department there, so I got a job in the book department.”
She cited Shakespeare as one of her all-time favorites, having dropped a reference to his “Henry V” upon walking indoors from the parade earlier:
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends; once more.” However, as Mickle’s daughter Sheila Soyster told The Ocean Star, her mom’s biggest passion is her painting.
“Her biggest thing is her paintings, which are all over the house; they’re all over everybody else’s houses, too,” said Soyster, an artist in her own right. “She’s been painting forever, and I grew up just assuming that everybody can paint. I started to paint and draw, and I figured I have that gift from my mom that I can keep going with. Not only is she a great artist; she’s been a Sunday school teacher, a scout leader, a PTO president and she’s just a wonderful person. We’re so proud that we can celebrate with her.”
This is an excerpt of the print article. For more on this story, read The Ocean Star—on newsstands Friday or online in our e-Edition.
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