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Breaking away from the city was hard, but when their San Diego home sold for double what they'd paid for it just three years earlier, it financed their purchase of Esther Young's Gateway farm.
"The hardest part was moving away from our boys, Shane (33) and Brendon (30), and grandson, Tyler (5). But (the farm) is for our kids and grandson. This is our last stop," Paul said.
"We even had our own Gateway Parade entry. I grabbed our riding mower and rode in it with Tyler," he laughed, referring to Gateway's mini-Fourth of July Parade featuring riding lawn mower floats.
When they arrived last summer, the farmhouse was painted bright blue on the outside, with purple and pink rooms inside and fluorescent lighting. Paul spent six months painting, and replacing floors and the roof on the house.
"This is the best thing we ever did in our whole lives," Paul said, marveling that, "It's the people. They all stop by to just give a howdy. We never experienced that in L.A. or San Diego."
He didn't know Madras was having a building boom when they moved here, but quickly found carpentry work with Kirby-Nagelhout Construction and currently is working on the minimum-security portion of Deer Ridge Correctional Institution in Madras.
"I'm really happy now; it just takes me 20 minutes to get to work, he said, noting LouAnn got a job working at the Safeway pharmacy with her friend Becky Roberts.
ChildhoodFame
Reflecting over his performing days with The Cowsills, Paul said his dad couldn't carry a tune, but came up with the idea. "He had a vision and took a bunch of little kids all the way to the top," he said.
The Cowsill children -- Bill, Bob, Barry, Paul, John, and Susan -- grew up in Newport, Rhode Island, where their dad "Bud" was a career Navy man and was gone on cruises a lot. One time he returned with a bunch of ukuleles, which the kids learned to play. Bill transferred those skills to the guitar, then taught Bob to play. When the Beatles craze hit in the '60s, their dad bought them "Silvertone" electric equipment at Sears. Joined by Barry on bass guitar and John on the drums they played for events at their own Catholic church and school dances, with dreams of being like The Beatles.
Paul didn't join in right away, for a surprising reason. "I was deaf for the first six-and-a-half years of my life," he revealed, explaining that his adenoids had grown into his ear canals, blocking off sound.
Paul didn't talk, but because he had become so adept at lip reading, and copying his siblings, the problem wasn't detected until he was 4 years old. It took a full year of repeated surgeries at a children's hospital to correct the problem, which put him behind in school. It wasn't until the seventh grade that a teacher helped him get caught up with all his friends. Despite that setback, he grew up to be talkative, upbeat and funny.
When his brothers first started playing music, Paul helped out working security, hauling gear, and ironing their outfits. His mother Barbara had a beautiful voice, and his dad's decision to put their mom in the band was a stroke of marketing genius, Paul said, noting it made their band unique.
They were performing regularly in 1963 at a club in Newport, when a scout from the Today Show caught their act. "He asked us to be on the Today Show with Barbara Walters. We went and mom sang a song called `Cruel War.' Nothing was happening like that then," Paul said, adding that unlike many other bands, "we really played our instruments."
That appearance lead to a contract with Mercury Records. By then 13-year-old Paul had joined the band playing bass and 7-year-old Susan also sang.
When the Mercury contract ended, musicians Artie Kornfeld and Steve Duboff got The Cowsills to record their song "The Rain, The Park and Other Things," which led to a contract with MGM Records.
"We recorded `Flower Girl,' `We Could Fly,' `Indian Lake,' and our first million-sellers. MGM sent us on tour on a bus, and the whole Partridge Family thing was our life," Paul said, noting they rehearsed three hours a day, every day, including Sunday, and were on the road eight months a year. The kids finished their schooling with tutors from the New York Professional School and Hollywood Professional School, who accompanied them.
They were guests on national TV shows, had their own TV special and were approached to do a TV series based on their family band.
At first the Cowsills were going to play themselves. "But when the TV producers wanted Shirley Jones to play our mom our dad said no," Paul said. So, other child actors were hired to play them in The Partridge Family TV series. "The first few episodes were really like us, and then it just got Hollywood," Paul admitted.
When brother Bill developed a drug problem and started not showing up for concerts, their dad kicked him out of the band and ordered Bob to teach 15-year-old Paul to play the keyboard overnight.
Bob told Paul not to worry. "You can do this. All you need is five fingers," Bob said encouragingly as he taught him some basic chords. Paul got lost in the middle of the next concert, but went on to master the keyboard and bass guitar.
Things were good for a while, but both his parents became alcoholics, and his dad made bad business deals, which resulted in none of the children getting any royalties after age 19. When Paul was old enough to start using his $3 million trust fund built up from performances and record royalties, he found his dad had lost it all on bad land deals and other bad negotiations.
But Paul said he isn't bitter about the money, and has always earned his own way in the world. "Life is too short to rehash all that. I've way moved on," he said.
The Cowsills disbanded in the early '70s, after Paul received a draft notice and promptly joined the Navy. He was followed by older brother Richard (not in the band), who went into the Army.
Managed Helen Reddy
After two years in the Navy, Paul worked in the music industry from 1973 to 1978 as a road manager for many performers including Helen Reddy, Mac Davis, Neil Diamond, and John Denver. "It was a lot of fun, but it became tedious," he said.
At one point, Reddy helped him get a contract and a $30,000 advance from Capital Records to produce his own record. Trying to help brother Bill out of a slump, Paul gave him half the money to join in on the project. He didn't know Bill was still having problems with drugs.
But the whole thing turned into a fiasco. "While we were making the record, Bill tore the tape off the recording studio machine, I had to chase him, and Jackson Brown ended up writing a song about it," Paul related, adding, "I did make a really good record `The Time Has Come,' but it was shelved."
That's when he decided to switch professions. Enjoying the outdoors, he worked in the oil fields, owned a painting company, then went into the construction business.
Barry tragedy
As for the other family members, some had problems dealing with fame, while others adjusted.
Barry was the subject of a nationwide search following Hurricane Katrina. Both Barry and Susan were residents of New Orleans when the hurricane hit. Susan was able to evacuate, but there was no contact from Barry except three voice mail messages left on Susan's cell phone saying he was stranded and asking for help. He also suffered from drug problems and had been scheduled to go into rehabilitation the day the hurricane hit.
"We went on Inside Edition, CNN, and Entertainment Tonight to ask for help in finding him," Paul said.
Unfortunately, just last week the family was notified that Barry's body had been identified in New Orleans, and it is believed his death was related to the devastating storm.
Their dad died in 1992 of leukemia and their mother in 1985 at age 54 of emphysema.
John worked as a finish carpenter, and for the past five years has been playing keyboard with Mike Love of the Beach Boys; Bill, now 57, continued to suffer from drug and alcohol addictions and is in poor health and living in Alberta, Canada.
Bob, who Paul described as "a great guy," is married, has five kids, is a computer programmer and still plays at pubs four nights a week to finance his kids' college education. Susan, who lived with Paul from the time she was 12, is a touring solo artist and in 2004 released the album "Believe It."
Still performing
Their songs are a fixed part of the Baby Boomers' collective memory, and the Cowsill siblings still get together about twice a year to perform for benefit concerts and special shows.
Just last year, Century Records put out "The Best of the Cowsills: The Millennium Collection" CD of their hit songs. The comedy "Dumb and Dumber" played their song "The Rain, The Park and Other Things" all through the movie, but no royalties are received by Cowsills from either production.
"A few weeks ago, for Oregon Public Broadcasting's '60s show, we played in L.A. with Lulu, and B.J. Thomas on a show about movie themes. We did `Hair' and didn't have time to rehearse at all," Paul said, adding the program will air in Oregon in February.
Last year, Bob, Paul, Barry, Susan and Rich were invited to sing the National Anthem at Fenway Park during the Yankees vs. the Red Soxs baseball game, which was a real thrill for Red Soxs enthusiast Paul.
One wealthy Cowsills fan, Paul said, "is doing a movie on us. We've been filmed for the last two years, but we don't know if it's ever going to happen or not."
About every 10 years, somebody gets them excited about producing a new album of original songs. Their own Robin Records company produced "Global" in the 1990s, which was chosen by listeners as the No. 1 album on an Internet radio station, but didn't get picked up for marketing by the music industry.
"Over the years we've made other great records, but they were all shelved. We enjoy making the music. It's all original stuff that we always wanted to do," Paul said.
"We have a beautiful song `Christmas Time' that could be as big as `White Christmas,' he said, playing a sampling of the dreamy tune sung by Susan.
Both Paul and LouAnn are misty-eyed after hearing the song. "It's not about the money to me," Paul said. "Somebody deserves to hear this stuff. It's like there's a big void in the world because of this music nobody's ever heard."
Photos of Paul and LouAnn by Susan Matheny
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