PAULA SUE RAULSTON DUCHESNE

Paula in 1973 (Senior in high school)

  ARLINGTON, TEXAS– Paula Sue Raulston Duchesne was born July 30, 1955, in Dallas, Texas, to Herbert and Derrelline Raulston.  She has an older sister (by eleven months!), Sandra Denise Raulston Galley.  Sandra and her husband, Robert, have two children, Julie and Robby.  Paula's early roots were in Arlington, and she's never strayed from the area.  Her maternal Grandparents were from Winnsboro, Texas  She still has relatives there and visits as often as she can.  Her paternal Grandparents were from Clarksville, Texas, and many of her relatives still reside there.  She makes it up to Clarksville at least every Christmas night for fireworks, for the New Haven Cemetery gathering the 4^th Sunday in June (aka the Raulston Reunion), and during hunting season.  Paula was raised with both parents in the home with lots of love.  She admits that both she and her sister were spoiled, and when she fails to admit it, her husband reminds her!  Of course her husband has continued in this tradition!

Email Paula Duchesne

Paula remembers that Christmas' on Christmas Day at Pa Raulston's place in Clarksville, in addition to the fireworks entertainment after sundown, were always filled with ALL the relatives, the great Christmas tree from the woods with the plastic icicles, and all the presents.  Uncle Kent and Aunt Chris always provided our winter coats for us and many of our clothes for the year.  They spoiled us badly at Christmas time.  There was always a bottle (Jack Daniels I think) under the tree that simply said, "From Santa."  When the time came that I had my doubts about Santa, I still never figured out who put that bottle under the tree! 

Paula is married to Al Duchesne, a director at Lockheed Martin Missiles & Fire Control-Dallas, and together they have five children.  "My three sons" (Paula's) are Cody, Chase, and Dane.  Her children are discussed in detail later in this section.  Al has a daughter, Terre, and a son, Ted.  Al and Paula have six grandchildren (as of November 13, 2007). Tehya, Savannah, and Sadie (Terre's) and Addison, William, and Caroline (Cody).   

Here's his world famous Mexican Fudge recipe!!

MEXICAN FUDGE

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.  Use oblong Pyrex 9"x12" pan.

Spread Jalapeno slices along bottom (it doesn't hurt if the juice spills out)

Cover pepper with layers of:

1/2 large package sharp cheddar cheese

1/2 large package Colby/Monterrey Jack cheese

Repeat cheese layers (use whole packages of each)

Whip 5 eggs as if to scramble - add salt and pepper to taste

Pour evenly over cheese

Bake for 30 minutes.

(to reheat nuc for 20 seconds)

Allen Duchesne

Paula wants Christmas to last 365 days a year.  Paula's been a Baptist girl all her life, and has gone to the Lake Arlington Baptist Church since 1980.  She loves it there! She loves the anonymous person that's spreading billboards all over the country reminding people we're a Christian nation.  She's recently joined the Walnut Ridge Baptist Church with Al and her Mom, Derrelline Raulston, because that's where Al prefers to go - and we stick together on issues as serious as this!  She's been a Christian since she was 12.  She's a sinner just like everybody else, but takes great comfort in the fact that all her sins are forgiven!

Paula would like for her eulogy to include what an awesome Wife and Mother she was (she's still growing and trying to survive in the Mother department, because her three sons are currently teenagers!), how much she loved life, and how much she loved the Lord.  Her goal is to become the kind of selfless, giving person that her Mother always has been, seemingly creating an impossible challenge.  The quest continues!   

[Cody wrote this in a high school class prior to 1996 about his childhood]... I as born Cody Lee Kirkman on April 16, 1979 at 4:40 pm at the Arlington Memorial Hospital in Arlington, Texas to Randall Lee and Paula Sue Kirkman.

From that date, things have been very disorderly and confusing regarding my family roots.  When I was two years old, my Mom and Dad separated.  I was too young to remember the details, but I know that a divorce was the ultimate goal for my parents.

During the middle of their divorce, on April 22, 1982, my Dad was tragically killed in a train-car collision in Arlington.  The train was parked across Highway 303 at the TU Electric plant with an engine, a caboose, and a flatbed car behind the caboose (illegally).  The accident occurred at 10:10 pm, with no lights, no flag man, no moon, and light rain.  To my knowledge, my Dad never even applied the brakes.  A witness that heard the noise parked his car and was walking across the street toward the noise.  He could see nothing and as he was walking across the highway, he said he felt something cold and clammy.  He lifted his arm toward the coolness and touched the flatbed car!  That'll tell you something about the visibility that night! 

Now back to the family ties.  My Dad had been married before he married my Mom.  He had a son by that previous marriage, Tony L. Kirkman.  Tony's Mother abandoned him around his 2^nd birthday and my Dad raised him.  When my Mom and Dad married, Tony lived with us and we were inseparable.  He adored me (I was a cute baby!).  When my parents separated, I still saw Tony at least twice a week because of the visitation agreement.  When my Dad died, he had a girl in the car that only got a knot on her head.  She was five months pregnant and started saying that my father was the father of the unborn child.  The alleged sister was born in August of 1982 and I've never seen her.  Her name is Brandy Leigh Wolfenbarger.   She is now a Baptist preacher's child in Joshua, Texas, because my dad's girlfriend at the time (Ginger was her name) married the preacher and she took his name.

Next, my Mom remarried.  The man I refer to as my Dad is Cecil Gilbert.  He's a great guy!  He had a daughter and son from a previous marriage, so I had another built-in family!  His daughter passed away when she was two.  Lenny Gilbert, his son, is three years older than me.  Then, my Mom and Dad (Paula and Cecil) had two more boys while they were married.  My brother, Chase, was born in May of 1984, and my brother, Dane, was born in January of 1986.  We lived happily ever after until my Mom and Dad (Cecil) divorced in 1988.

In 1989, my Mom remarried a man named Al Duchesne, who had two children, Ted, born in 1977, and Terre, born in 1973.  Terre is now married and has two little girls, with another one due in July, 2001.   

So, to recap:

·     Half-brother, Tony Leon Kirkman, born October 26, 1970, died         

    August 12, 1994

·     Half-brother, Chase Warren Gilbert, born May 20, 1984

·     Half-brother, Dane Michael Gilbert, born January 24, 1986

·     Step-sister, Jala Leigh Gilbert, Born 1978 (passed away two years

    later)

·     Step-brother, Lenny Brian Gilbert, born October 5, 1976

·     Step-brother, Ted Duchesne, born November 22, 1977

·     Step-sister, Terre Duchesne McGill, born December 19, 1973

·     Alleged half-sister, Brandy Leigh Wolfenbarger, born August 1982

I never had any full blood brothers or sisters.  In 1994, a week after I started my sophomore year in high school, my brother, Tony, died in Waldron, Arkansas.  He hung himself in a jail cell where he was put for breaking parole on a minor charge and for threatening police.  He was 11 when our Dad was killed and he always blamed himself.  His Dad had asked him that night if he minded if he went out.  Tony had said no, he didn't mind.  In his mind, he thought had he told his Dad not to go that night, he'd still be alive, and he never recovered from that.

My earliest memory of my Dad was when I turned three years old.  I had two birthday cakes, one was the "Dukes of Hazard" and the other was "The Smurfs".  My real Daed dropped me off at my Grandma Raulston's house and walked me to the door.  I stood on the inside of the door waving goodbye and he waved at me and drove away.  That was the last time I saw him.  My few memories of him are that he loved racing his CJ-5 Jeep, he walked around the house on all fours with me on his back pretty often, and we rolled in the floor wrestling a lot.  He loved Christmas and had to have tons of icicles on the real Christmas tree (which I was allergic to).

I went to school at the age of five at Bethel Christian Academy (K-12) in Arlington.  I went to Kindergarten and 1^st grade there.  I made straight A+'s.  I had been reading since I was three so school was a breeze for me.  I then switched to Miller Elementary and stopped going there in the middle of the 4^th grade.  Then I moved to Ditto Elementary and finished my elementary years there.  I attended Young Junior High my 7^th through 9^th grade years and high school was at Martin (all in Arlington).  My first memory of high school was that I skipped by 5^th period class the first day I was there.

My first car was a 1987 Mustang 5.0 GT.  I only drove it a couple of months before I totaled it in a one-car accident on Bowman Springs Road.  I bummed rides for over a year, then I bought an emerald green 1994 Eagle Talon.  I wasn't very nice to that one, either, so I bought a 1993 Ford Probe at an auction.  I kept leaving it at the Fina station around the corner and went out with my friends.  My Mom had to keep getting it out of tow at $159 each time.  She finally got tired of that, and the third time she refused to get it out.  About a month later, when I figured I'd gathered up enough money to get it out, I found out it had been sold at a Sheriff's Auction.  That's a valuable lesson in money management ($5,000.00).  I then bought a 1992 Acura Integra... a very nice older car with low miles and one owner, all leather and all the trimmings.  I wasn't very nice to that car, either, and in a matter of about a year I sold it for $900, a loss of $9,900.  All the while, I'm learning money management lessons.  Most recently, I bought a 1997 red Jeep Wrangler, which I'm still driving.  It has problems, too, so my track record with vehicles needs to improve!

On my senior trip I went to Cancun for 9 days.  I partied a little too hard, but I had a great time.  My family and I have taken quite a few trips including Salt Lake City snow skiing, Lake Tahoe, San Francisco, Venice Beach, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Las Vegas, New Orleans, Boston, Orlando, Indianapolis, Atlanta, Montgomery, Panama City Beach, Florida, Ruidoso, Nashville, Kansas City, Branson, New York City, and just about anywhere else in the United States you'd care to mention.  I've been to DisneyWorld, Florida four times!  I've been to many summer camps including Vacation Bible School every year until I outgrew it at Lake Arlington Baptist Church, Sky Ranch in Van, Texas, Falls Creek, Oklahoma, and Glenrose, Dinosaur Valley.  My hobbies include singing, writing poetry and song lyrics, playing baseball and pool, and partying.

I have a lot of hopes and dreams.  I know they will become a reality with hard work, time, and diligence.  I want a college education, a wife, two children, and financial freedom.  I will spend lots of time with my wife and children.  The very end result of my father's death was to each me a lesson to live a long life.  I plan to wisely invest money, work hard (hopefully in my own business), travel, spend time on the lake, and have a great time with my family.  I'm going to stay married to the woman I marry, so that my kids won't have to go through the identity crisis of wondering "who am I anyway?"  It became confusing because I used the name 'Gilbert' from the time I was four until I got into Martin High School.  They made me use the name of my birth certificate - which is Kirkman - and not only did I not know who I was, but my friends didn't either.  My father and brother are side by side together in the Bluebonnet Hills Cemetery in Grapevine, Texas, and I don't plan to join them anytime soon!  I plan to be buried in about 2096 (or later) with my children (hopefully) outliving me.  I've got a lot of living to do!

Chase Warren Gilbert was born on Sunday, May 20, 1984 at 12:30 pm in Arlington, Texas to Paula Sue Raulston Gilbert and Cecil Warren Gilbert.  He weighed 6 lbs, 5-1/2 ozs. and was 20 inches long.

Chase has always had an animated personality.  When he was five, the next-door-neighbor to his Grandma Raulston, Heather, was his girlfriend.  Everything he said had her name attached to it.  Things like, "When Heather and I get out of college we're going snow skiing," were always flowing from his mouth.  He was always telling tales about some big hunting trip that he'd created in his mind or some big trip he'd been on with imaginary characters.  His life was so full of imagination that his Mom began to worry about him.  The doctor told her that was perfectly normal and healthy.

Chase is like his father, his Aunt Sue, and his grandfather (his Dad's Dad - Grandpa Gilbert) with an impulsive-compulsive disorder for cleaning.  He's the best person to hire to clean your house, because he's so thorough with what he does, he often uses a toothbrush to complete his tasks.  Never can you find a better one - whatever he charges is worth it!  

Chase loves to have fun and is easily bored.  Chase needs to be working with his hands all the time.  When Chase gets upset, he rearranges furniture, carrying the heavy pieces of furniture over his shoulder like it was a feather.  This, too, he takes from his father. 

Night time entertainment at Club54 and Stixx.  Parasailing and jet-skiing at Cayne Bay.  Take a water taxi over to the tiny island ($3.00 per person RT).

Golf at the Carambola for one of the best on the combined islands.  My step-dad, Al golfed at the Buccaneer and the greens weren't good, but the ocean views are really good.  It's almost like going to Pebble Beach (but without the deer).  There's a small 3 par close to Point Udall, but it didn't look too exciting compared to the other two.

Driving on the left side of the road with the steering wheel on the left side of the car is "interesting" as well as challenging!  There are lots of wrecks on the island due to tourists failure to recall.

We stayed at Chenay Bay and me and my brothers spent one night at the Cane Bay Reef Club.  Both are great oceanside places to stay, but Cane Bay doesn't have a beach.  It's within about 150 yards of the Full Moon Party, though, where there's a great beach.  The Buccaneer is also a good place to stay.  We couldn't see staying at the Cayne Bay Resort because the only way to get there is via water taxi and parking in Christiansted, with golf clubs and all our bags, it would be a pain in the butt.

There are horses all over the island just kind of grazing.  There's a stable advertised, but we didn't fit that in our schedule.

Don't be fooled by the fact that St. Croix is only 21 miles long.  If you're headed from the middle of the island to the west side, plan on spending 45 minutes on the road.  The maps are very poor, the street signage is non-existent, the roads and narrow and twist around mountains and hair-pin curves, and the movement on the whole island is pokey to say the least.

 Islanders take their time doing anything so get used to it.  That includes the K-Mart, McDonalds, Wendy's, and KF Chicken chains.  You can only eat two meals a day. We learned that after ordering breakfast the first morning at 9:30 and being served at noon.  After that, we grabbed a quick bowl of Frosted Flakes before heading out.  We ordered our food at the Coconut Hut there at Chenay Bay.  I say they never pick up their feet - they just scoot from place to place.  Another good example of that is the owner of the water sports left on Cayne Bay.  There was a man sitting in a lawn chair at the place, so my brother Cody walked up to him and said, "What time do y'all open?"  (It was 10:45 am).  The guy sitting there said, "When the owner gets here."  Cody said, "What time does the owner get here?" and the man in the lawn chair said, "When he feels like it."  So we waited, swam in the ocean, and finally the guy behind the bar called the owner and told him to get his butt to work because he had customers wanting to parasail.  The guy finally showed up about 12:45 then told us the boat was in the shop so no parasailing. 

Plan on staying at least a week and a half.  We stayed 5 days and 4 nights and it was about half as long as it should have been.