Paul Sel

Paul Sel is a father and brother whose brief appearances in the family narrative center on grief, care, and the effort to keep a household going after loss. When his wife Marta dies in a ferry collision, Paul cannot console himself and does not know how to reach his daughter Jeanne; his sister Mary May helps by bringing the children together and proposing that Jeanne stay with her family.

Family and Loss

Paul is the brother of Mary May Mius and the father of Jeanne Sel. Jeanne’s mother, Marta, is lost when the ferry she is aboard collides with a coal barge in heavy fog; both vessels sink. Jeanne remembers her mother waving goodbye from the rail, while Paul tells her that Mama cannot come back. His own grief is evident to Jeanne, who understands from his weeping that the loss is terrible.

The evidence presents Paul’s bereavement through its effect on his daughter as much as through his own sorrow. Jeanne withdraws from other children and will talk or play only with Felix Mius. Paul confides to Mary May that he does not know what to do. His admission gives the family’s private grief a practical dimension: he must care for a child who has lost her mother while confronting the fact that he cannot simply explain the loss away.

Mary May’s Support and Jeanne’s Care

Mary May responds by treating Jeanne’s closeness with Felix as a good sign rather than a problem. She suggests that Jeanne come stay with her family and proposes a picnic to help both Jeanne and Paul through the loss. Paul says that nothing can help him, but he does not resist his sister’s plan when she calls the children to join the outing. His acceptance is a small but consequential act of care: he allows Mary May to support Jeanne when he cannot offer an answer of his own.

The family sets off from the crowded reservation in Paul’s old grey truck, with Jeanne and Felix among the children. The outing does not erase the death or Paul’s grief; instead, it places the children in one another’s company and gives Mary May a role in their care. Paul’s willingness to go along with the plan shows kinship functioning as practical support in the aftermath of bereavement.

Household and Later Family Connections

Years later, after his first wife Nanty has died, Lobert Sel remarries Kate Googoo. Their children include Paul, followed the next year by Alice and later Mary May. The account establishes Paul’s place in a younger generation of the Sel family, though it does not describe his childhood or his relationship with his father in detail.

Paul’s branch of the family is later encountered by his niece Sapatisia, who visits relatives after leaving home. In a letter to her parents, she reports that she has not yet met Uncle Paul or his daughter Jeanne. Her note makes clear that Paul and Jeanne remain part of a wider family network even when distance has kept Sapatisia from knowing them personally. Paul’s story is thus marked both by intimate loss and by the persistence of kinship across generations.