Paul Hartmann was born Frederich Paul Hartmann in 1881 in Germany, the second son of Maria and Richard Hartmann. He received a sixth grade education in Germany, the equivalent of eight grade in the U.S.

Paul married Frida Stuhr in Germany. The Lutheran records of Stockelsdorf, a parish in the former Duchy of Luebeck, include the marriage of Frieda Stuhr to Friedrich Paul Hartmann on 25 Feb 1905 in the local parish church. Friedrich Paul Hartmann, a laborer in Ravensbusch [a village in this parish], son of the iron turner Carl Richard Hartmann there, and of Dorothea Johanne Maria Kauffmann, born on 26 May, baptized 17 July 1881, confirmed 22 March 1896 in Stockelsdorf, married Frieda Ida Maria Stuhr in Stockelsdorf, legitimate daughter of the carpenter Johann Heinrich Matthias Stuhr there, and Emma Christine Dorothea Glanert, born on 2 May, baptized on 2 June 1884, confirmed on 27 March 1898 in Stockelsdorf. The scripture given to the couple as a guide was John 13 verse 34.

Paul Hartmann had been a sailor who turned to shipyard work after his marriage. He shipped "before the mast" on two-masted sailing ships that traded in the Baltic Sea. He told tales of carrying hundred pound sacks of grain on his back up the gangplank to the ship at the little ports where they traded. Even as a old man he could occasionally play a tune on the little push-button accordion that he had learned to play during his slow watches as a sailor. He once demonstrated his skill at creating a fishnet out of cord. As the First World War approached, the Kaiser was drafting every sailor he could find for his navy where discipline was harsh and pay was poor for supporting a family.

Paul and his daughter, Hertha, emigrated to San Francisco, California, in 1911; they were sponsored by his aunt, "Tante Ida", who had made a fortune in Alaska and needed a handyman to care for some of her property at San Francisco. Paul's wife, Frida, and daughter, Paula, followed him to San Francisco three months later. Father Paul had already left the home of "Tante Ida" by this time and moved into a flat on Hyde Street. Here the girls started school and the family welcomed Fritz Hartmann, Aline and Carl Richter and later Paul's parents from Germany until they found their own housing. Paul worked on the waterfront for wages and sometimes set out crab traps in San Francisco Bay for the family's Sunday dinner.

Between 1911-1914 Paul's parents, Richard and Maria Hartmann, emigrated to San Francisco where they lived with their son, Fritz Hartmann, and their daughter, Aline Hartmann Richter, and their son-in-law Carl Richter.

In 1917 Paul and Frida Hartmann, because of the anti-German job bias, moved their family to Raymond, California. Paul could not get his customary work on the San Francisco waterfront because German nationals were seen as a security threat there during the First World War. Sometime after 1917 the Hartmanns and Richters all moved from San Francisco to share property outside of Raymond, California, owned by Paul and Frida. They later purchased several parcels of this land and built homes on them.

Paul and Frida Hartmann chopped firewood for sale and enlarged a one-room cabin. Paul worked successively in a gold mine at Grub Gulch, at the Raymond Granite Company as a crane operator, as well as starting a garden and later raising chickens, turkeys, a few cows and some hogs. An attempt at raising wheat on their land failed, but while the railroad ran and the granite quarries supplied jobs there was a local market for what the farm produced. During their high-school years, the girls drove Billy, the horse, to Raymond where they delivered butter and eggs before starting their school day.

In 1923 Paul and Frida and the two girls, who had graduated from high school, returned to San Francisco to work. Frida became ill after about a year of working as a cook for the Pacific Telephone Company. She and Paul returned to Raymond to resume chicken raising, gardening, etc. Later Paul also worked at the McGilvray Granite Quarry. Upon their return to Raymond, both Paul and Frida became well-known in the area and were quite active socially; in later life they were faithful attendees at Grandmothers' Club meetings.

In later years the "ranch" was rather self-sufficient but it couldn't be left overnight without care. Paul had to milk the cow and Frida needed to make butter and cheese before the milk spoiled in the partial cool of an evaporative cooler. The chickens had to be fed. The garden needed water daily in the summer heat; every day or two Paul had to walk a quarter mile with a can of gasoline to start the water pump; the level of water in the two tanks had to be checked more often. The water pipes had to be insulated with gunny sacks against the frosts of winter and Paul had to fix any pipe that broke or leaked precious water. Paul did most repairs to his car and turned a hand pump to fuel it from a big drum of gasoline. Paul used his carpentry skills to mend the outbuildings so that the pigs and cow and calf and chickens stayed in and the cats and snakes stayed out. The garden that supplied fresh food in the summer and home canned food in the winter required frequent weeding and planting and harvesting.

Paul and Frida were both in their sixties when their house burned down. Their only telephone was near where the fire started, so virtually everything was gone before the rural fire department arrived. They lived with their daughter, Hertha, in Madera for a couple of years, then decided to rebuild the house. Paul and Frida lived in the garage while they rebuilt the house from the foundations up; only the patios and retaining walls of granite blocks survived the fire. Paula's husband, Bill, helped with the electrical work but Paul and Frida built the rest themselves. Paul did all the plumbing; arthritic knees or not, Frida and Paul climbed ladders to put the roof on. Paul built the kitchen counters and cabinettes unusually low for short Frida's comfort. They restored the fruit trees and Frida's roses in the upper garden and went back to planting vegetables in the garden downhill from the house.

Paul had diabetes in his later years; Frida took great care of his diet after that, weighing each portion for him and buying low-sugar canned goods rather than serving him her own preserved food canned from their garden; he did not require medication. Paul died in 1960 in a Madera hospital, a few days after suffering a heart attack.