Paul A Matthews

I was born November 4,1925, the fourth of seven living children. On April 1, 1925, my parents purchased the old Harvey Mallory farm and blacksmith shop, and it was here and in the surrounding area known as Sheshequin, Pennsylvania that I grew up and still reside with my wife of 63 years, Betty. I graduated from Ulster High School in June 1943, and on the ninth of that month at the age of 17, started active duty in the Regular Navy. On October 2,1943 I reported aboard the U.S.S. Appalachian,an Amphibious Group Command Ship that took me to the Pacific and invasions of the Marshall Islands, Guam, Leyte, and Luzon. I participated in the occupation of the Japanese Empire and the first two atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll in 1946. I left the U.S.S. Appalachian on September 10,1946, and was honorably discharged as a Coxswain on October 31,1946. I married my high school sweetheart, Betty Hotchkiss, on May 11,1946. After discharge from the Navy and a short stint at college in California, I returned to Sheshequin to get a job with Ingersoll-Rand Company, where I worked as a machine operator for seven years, before being transferred to the Technical Publications Department. Here I served as a technical writer and eventually as manager of technical publications. During my spare time, I worked at writing articles about guns and hunting, two or three novels and embarked on a 3-year Famous Writer's Course. I wrote several articles for Gun Digest and other gun publications, as well as a series of fiction hunting stories for both Shooting Times and the Pennsylvania Game News. I still write for the Game News. Since retirement in 1982, I have written several small books relative to rifle shooting published by Wolfe Publishing Company, and one published by Exchange Publishers, Inc. In 1992 at age 66, I became involved in black powder cartridge silhouette competition where I participated in 188 matches,setting four new national records and becoming a co-holder on two other national records. Now,at age 83, I still manage to get to the shooting range once or twice a week, weather permitting. During the early years of my marriage, my wife Betty and I had four children. I always found time to write, with my first article published in the January,1949 issue of Field & Stream. Other articles, short stories and books have followed, and they are still coming!