Paul N. Carter, 87, of 298 Shoemaker Road, Mohawk, passed away at home peacefully Monday evening, Jan. 30, 2006, with his beloved daughter, Leah, by his side. Paul N. Carter was born April 5, 1918 , in Dormont, Pittsburgh, Pa., the son of Asa Leroy Carter and Euphemia Stevenson Carter. He attended schools in Morgantown, W.Va., and received his Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Law degrees at West Virginia University in 1941. On June 7 of that year he was admitted to the West Virginia Bar. He then enrolled as a special student at Columbia Law School in New York City. Working then as a dormitory switchboard operator and looking for employment, he succeeded in securing a place as an attorney with the General Counsel's Office of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. From that office, and before volunteering into the Navy, he was admitted to the New York State Bar on Feb. 2, 1943. Following Navy officer training at Dartmouth College, he was assigned, as an ensign, to duty as security officer and as assistant legal officer at the newly commissioned Wildwood Naval Air Station, Wildwood, N.J. Soon then ?putting in? for sea duty, he received combat information officer training and at Tacoma, Wash., was assigned to night fighter carrier, ships company, duty aboard the newly commissioned USS Commencement Bay, and then the USS Kula Gulf, which saw duty in the Pacific Theater. He served as group legal officer, with battle station assignment to the combat information center. Discharged at San Diego as lieutenant - senior grade - on Feb. 14, 1946, and yet not having been on land abroad, Paul applied at Washington, D.C., to the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration for employment in Europe. At that administration's Office of Personnel at its tri-partite headquarters in Arolsen, Germany, he was placed at that headquarters as assistant legal adviser to the director of Displaced Persons Operations for the British, French and American zones of Germany. Soon thereafter, upon the recall to Paris of the legal adviser, Dr. Manfred Semon, Paul succeeded to that position. His service as legal adviser extended through the early transition takeover of the UNRAA responsibilities for displaced persons and refugees operations by the Preparatory Commission of the Refugee Agency of the United Nations. Particularly remembered from this period were his chairings of two tri-partite meetings (American, French and British) in Berlin - traveling by train the corridor across the Russian Zone from Frankfurt to and from Berlin. While at the headquarters in Arolsen, Paul had met a girl, Taimi Ester Hannikat, from Tallinn, Estonia, who was working as a cartographer at the Tracing Bureau of the headquarters there, and who habitually bested him in badminton. They married in Heidelberg, Germany, on June 11, 1947. Taimi passed away Jan. 25, 2006. Paul and Taimi returned to the United states in May 1948, and Paul registered as a special student at Harvard Law School for two semesters. In the spring of 1949, wholly fortuitously (literally by the dropping of a knitting needle at random on a map of the state of New York), they located in Mohawk, and Paul opened his practice of law in the adjoining village of Ilion. He was soon joined in his practice by his good friend and law school classmate, Jack S. Manley Esq. The firm of Carter and Manley practiced upwards of 40 years in the New York state and federal courts, including the New York Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of the United States. A past president of the Herkimer County Bar Association, Paul served on its grievance committee and later on its memorial committee; also for years as a member of its Herkimer County Community College paralegal course advisory committee. For a time he taught the American School of Banking courses in negotiable instruments and in commercial law. He was a member of the New York State Bar Association and of the American Bar Association. For 13 years he served as Mohawk village justice and thereafter for 12 years as attorney for that village. He traveled extensively throughout the United States and abroad; disappointing, however, his father's wish for him that he travel around the world. Easterly, however, his travels included Europe and from St. Petersburg to Baku on the Caspian Sea, and in Africa to Cairo and on a safari in Kenya, and westerly to Hong Kong and to Beijing, China. As a charter member, Paul was long a member of the Mohawk Kiwanis Club. He was active in the formation of the Valley United Way. He attended the Presbyterian Church in Ilion and later the Dutch Reformed Church in Mohawk, where he taught Sunday school for several years. His favorite charity was The Salvation Army, on whose advisory board in Herkimer he served for years. He was a life member of the American Legion, Crowley Barnum Post, Mohawk. A Mason, he was a member of its Blue Lodge in Mohawk, the Consistory and of Ziyara Temple, Utica. He was long a member of the Conversation Club, Ilion. Paul is survived by his son, John E.S. Carter, Phoenix, Ariz., and his daughter, Leah Ruth Carter, Mohawk, and also by his devoted sister, Ruth C. Hok of Utica. Sadly Paul's son, Scott Leroy Carter and his wife, Taimi, predeceased him. In keeping with Paul's wishes there are no public calling hours or funeral services. The Graves-Applegate-Day Funeral Home, 48 E. Main St., Mohawk, is proud to serve the Carter family.