“Here was a New England original, with the touch of an old-time farmer, yet of a mind truly open toward the conditions of today’s world and its complex history….As I got to know him better, our frequent contacts evolved into a friendship based on mutual interests that easily bridged the great difference between our respective backgrounds and prior experiences. I was curious to know more about Bill’s life, as he was about mine.”
— From the Introduction by Paul Schratter
“For a long time, many of us have been encouraging Bill to write a memoir of his remarkable life. This gem of a book, written by Bill’s dear late friend Paul Schratter, fulfills that need. While we can’t hear Bill’s distinctive hilltown accent, through these pages we experience Bill Streeter’s quick mind, his Yankee frugality, indefatigable work ethic, stubborn courage, optimistic outÂlook, and big heart.”
— From the Preface by Stephanie Pasternak
Author Paul Schratter was born in Vienna, Austria. He came to America alone at age 16, escaping the Holocaust that later claimed the lives of his father and other relatives. His mother had died when he was about three years old. Paul graduated from the Maryland Institute of Art and, after studies at Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins University, graduated from Boston’s Suffolk University. He served in the U.S. Army in Europe during World War Two and had a fifty-year career in a business. As an executive he and his wife Marlis, a talented artist-potter, traveled extensively throughout the world while their homes were in Baltimore, then in Lexington and Boston, Massachusetts. Their only child is their daughter Reina of Leeds, Massachusetts. Paul died at the age of 93 just months after completing this book.