A Gentle Giant

Philadelphia can be such a small town. One can meet people from work, old friends and foes everywhere. I met Paul through a Spanish colleague who was his neighbor in the high rise next to mine. Paul taught at UCLA for thirty-six years after receiving his doctorate at UC Berkeley in 1964, and had retired in Philadelphia to be close to his younger brother who needed his attention. His research focused on Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, the Valencian writer of Four Horseman of the Apocalypse fame. Paul turned out to be one of the few scholars to receive praise from my father in his Historia de la literatura Española (Vol. V, part III). Nothing to laugh about.

Before we met, he was married to Manena, a Spanish woman from Valencia, my hometown. She must have been a great cook, judging from the mean seafood paella that Paul used to make. But his favorite recipe was the Portuguese Bacalahau à Gomes de Sá, the famous codfish dish. He made it often and he would bring some for me unexpectedly and always at the right moment on a day I didn’t feel like cooking. Sometimes, he would leave something special at my front desk. Before my trip to the Galápagos, he dropped off some eyedrops in case I needed them. I have kept a note of his about some Marcona almonds that he knew I liked.

My favorite story about Paul is from the day he arrived in Málaga to attend a symposium to mark the centenary of my father’s birth. Several of the participants, including me, were waiting in a van to take us in a city tour. At that very moment, a taxi arrived to the hotel bringing Paul from the train station. He had flown from Philadelphia to Madrid and taken the AVE, the fast train to Málaga. I remember that he had a bright red suitcase, “the better to see it,” I guess. “Please, wait for me and I’ll join you,” Paul said in his perfect Spanish. Quickly, he left his bag at the front desk and joined us, greeting us with his bright smile. Never mind that the van was too small for his 6’4” frame and he was eighty years old then. If you have made one of those international flights you know how jet lagged one can be, but not Paul.

Paul was a known philanthropist. He funded a yearly conference at Middlebury College, where he had received an MA in Romance Languages. He also established the Paul C. Smith Endowed Fund at the University of Pennsylvania to support acquisitions in the field of Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian studies. In 2006 he donated his collection of books, especially by Blasco Ibáñez, including many first editions and rarities to the Van-Pelt Dietrich Library Center.  Paul also included the Penn Libraries in his estate planning. I accompanied him to several of the functions in his honor.

A few years ago, he gave me a beautiful Chinese antique vase from his porcelain collection. I treasure it; in fact, I decorated my bedroom in cobalt blue and white inspired by his gift.

Paul died in his sleep last weekend before his ninetieth birthday on November 10th. The police had to be called when his brother couldn’t reach him on the phone. One of the first things I had to do when I found out was to call OLLI (the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute) at Temple University, where Paul volunteered. He was set to teach a course on Portuguese for Spanish speakers this fall.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 9th, 2024 at 11:41 am by conchaalborg and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.