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Sharing Lessons of Being Together: Spending Time with Paul and Polly Sisters

photo provided Together 66 years and going strong, Paul & Polly Sisters share memories about Ferrisburgh, family, farm and a teaching career spanning one-room schools to union elementary schools.

Tuesday March 1, 2011

By Cookie Steponaitis

    Teamwork is a commodity that is highly valued in today’s competitive world. Coaches stress it with athletes, corporations bring in experts to foster it and schools instruct students on how to work as a team member. Still, with all that focus it seems to be in short supply in the world today. Perhaps we are all looking in the wrong place. Spend a couple of hours with a couple like Paul and Polly Sisters and witness teamwork that is dynamic, fluid and second nature. After all, they have been a team and together since their marriage in 1945, some sixty-six years ago.

    Yvonne Robert was born in 1927 on the family farm and as she was growing up was certain of two things. First, she wanted to be a teacher from her first breath and never wavered from that career choice. Second, she wasn’t going to be known as Yvonne for long. “I was sitting on my uncle’s lap when I was just a little thing,” she recalled. “I was repeating what the adults were saying and asking an ungodly number of questions. He looked down at me and said, ‘I am going to call you Polly Parrot.’ Luckily, Polly stuck and the parrot simply dropped away.”

    While Polly grew up working every day on the family farm, she had her heart and eyes set on a career as a teacher. “I attended a one-room school,” Polly shared. “We all worked together to learn and I used to watch carefully how the teacher did her job. I loved reading, writing and mathematics and helped her with the chores at school. I knew and promised myself I would go to college and become a teacher.” Polly was just thirteen when her life changed at a local Grange meeting. “Grange meetings were where you went to meet people and to have a social life,” Polly remembered. “We had card parties and gatherings. People came from all over and they were the social events of the area. When I attended that first meeting I saw Paul for the first time and I was pretty smitten. From that day on, my heart was set and I never veered.”

    Glancing over at her husband, he simply nods and picks up the story from that point. “I was born in Bristol in 1920,” remarked Paul Sisters. “I moved to Ferrisburgh with my family and worked on a farm until I bought my own place in 1938. We farmed the land until 1984. When we started we milked by hand and used horses in the field. While the technology changed a lot over the years, we still milked more traditionally and eventually we had a milking parlor, but we never used a pipeline system.”

    The couple married in 1945, had two children Susan and Tom and lived an incredibly busy life on the farm, with Polly teaching school full time and Paul being actively involved in Grange, Church and Ferrisburgh town positions. “I was the moderator for the Ferrisburgh Town Meeting for over twenty-five years,” shared Paul. “I also served as a town auditor and had several positions in the Grange and church. I am very proud of this community and felt honored to serve all those years. It is our home and we always wanted to be a part of helping the community to work.”

    “Always, always, always wanted to be a teacher,” reminded Polly. “After I graduated from Castleton State College, I taught full time at one room schools in Ferrisburgh for years and ended my career with many years at Ferrisburgh Central School. I must admit I always loved the third grade the best, but simply loved to work with children. Still do if truth be told.” Occasionally checking with Paul on dates and locations, Polly went on to share stories of  carrying water to the schools, building fires at night so that the schoolhouse would be warm for the children coming into school and the lessons she taught on reading, writing, history and mathematics. “We had a great deal of community and family support,” she remarked. “Christmas was the largest celebration for the children and we put on skits and dinners for the family. Each of the children shone when they shared their own part in the skit and their own learning. While my memories seem to cluster around the years at the one-room schools, I loved my years at Ferrisburgh Central School just as much.” Pausing a moment she bent nearer and commented, “As long as children were involved, it didn’t matter what room I was in. I just loved to teach.”

    While she openly admits to “…having her eye on Paul from the first meeting,” not much has separated this pair in sixty-six years of living in Ferrisburgh. When asked to share any advice or tidbits of insight for young couples and even married couples today, Paul and Polly both responded at the same time, “Spending time together and making decisions together.” Both then laughed and without pause went on to finish the sentence for the other. “We were always together and we worked together. We prayed together and we were a family together.”

    In a world where days seem to fly and commitments seem to be heavy with people overbooked and scheduled, it might seem that Paul and Polly’s formula doesn’t work, but both hastened to add that no matter the era or the year, the formula is the same. “Ferrisburgh is our home,” echoed Polly. “We didn’t want to live anywhere else and we put into our lives, our church, our family and our community the same importance. We wanted it all to be strong.” “Not only that,” supported Paul. “We shared together and we worked together.”
As the interview drew to a close, Paul’s eyes focused on Polly and wordlessly she moved into action straightening the blanket on his legs and settled into her chair next to him. No words were spoken and none were needed. A sixty-six year partnership continues on, uninterrupted by age, health or change of residence. Teamwork is alive and well in the Sister’s marriage and it reminds all of us that partnership can and still does work.  Instead of consulting the Internet or a life coach, check with the experts, those born of the era in America where partnerships formed did more than last a lifetime. They defined a nation and established it once and for all as a leader in the world.

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