Her grandfather would pluck the mandolin, blow his harmonica and recite poetry in the evening when his grueling day job was done. If the children were lucky, he'd try dancing.
"Grampa would sit and cross one leg over the other and we kids, one by one, would climb up on his top foot," 87-year-old Janet Bullard Watson recalled from Los Angeles. "He would hold our hands and lift and bounce us up and down in the air like a seesaw. Once in a while, he would pretend to do a soft shoe and would do an awkward shuffle that would throw us kids into peals of laughter."
Luckily for Casiville Bullard, his handiwork as a renowned stonemason and bricklayer didn't rely on his feet. The son of a slave, Bullard had a hand in building some of St. Paul's most enduring buildings in the early 20th century.
That list includes the recently renovated Minnesota State Capitol, the Cathedral of St. Paul, the Highland Water Tower and the governor's residence on Summit Avenue. Visit the architecture surrounding downtown St. Paul's Rice Park for more. The Landmark Center, St. Paul Hotel, George Latimer Central Library and City Hall-Ramsey County Courthouse were all products of Bullard's toil.
He crossed the river to help construct the Foshay Tower in Minneapolis in the late 1920s. And his own brick home at 1282 Folsom St., four blocks east of St. Paul's Lake Como, was added to the National Register of Historic Places some 20 years ago. He built that home at night in 1910, after work, while his wife held a kerosene lamp.
While some people called Casiville "Charlie" and family members used "Pa," "Dad" and "Grampa," the oldest survivor among his 34 grandchildren remembers how most people referred to him.
"Everyone else, including friends, in-laws, acquaintances and distant relatives always called him 'Mr. Bullard,' " Watson said. "He was a quiet, graceful, slow but deliberate, gentle man. He didn't talk much, but when he did, everyone listened."
Bullard was born on Feb. 24, 1873, in Memphis, the oldest of seven children. "Dad's father was a slave, but he was reluctant to talk about it," Bullard's late daughter, Arlee Blakey, said in a 1995 interview.