Artist Recalls Encounter With Albert Einstein; 8-Year-Old Fearful Of `Wild-Haired' Physicist

Only once did Pierce Milholland enter the home of his eccentric but famous neighbor, Albert Einstein.

Milholland, then an 8-year-old, became frightened of the wild-haired scientist, though Einstein was eager to contribute to the youth's newspaper drive in support of Allied forces in World War II.

Milholland, now an artist on Seattle's Capitol Hill, recalled his former neighbor yesterday after Time magazine named him Person of the Century, edging out such luminaries as President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Mohandas Gandhi.

Milholland, the son of an interior designer, grew up in Princeton, N.J., at 117 Mercer St., across the street and two doors down from Einstein's modest wood-frame house at 114 Mercer.

"He was kind of wild-looking," Milholland said. "That's what gave my friends and me the idea (scientists are) lunatics. Little did we know he would be right in style today. Nobody would give him a second glance today."

Einstein, a German-born Jew, had left Europe after Adolf Hitler took power in Germany in 1933. He became a professor at the new Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

It was 1943 when little Pierce Milholland knocked on the door of the man who revolutionized physics with his theories of relativity.

The professor invited the boy into his house, and the two of them searched for Einstein's old newspapers. They walked through a bare hallway and dining room, through a kitchen without a dish in sight, and into the library, a "chaotic" room with easy chairs, a music stand and a violin case.

They couldn't find the newspapers. Einstein suggested they look in the basement, an idea that terrified the boy. As the man descended the dark stairs ahead of him, Milholland was preparing an escape plan in case "anything funny" happened.

Einstein pulled the light chain and found the pile of newspapers. The scientist insisted on helping carry the papers to the boy's red wagon. Milholland hauled several wagonloads from the house.

Neither Milholland nor his family got to know the scientist who lived quietly and didn't attend neighborhood cocktail parties. Einstein handed out little cellophane bags of candy at Halloween, but Milholland never entered the house again.

He sometimes saw limousines pull up to Einstein's house. Riding his bike to school, the boy often passed Einstein as he walked to or from his office. The boy would wave; when the scientist noticed, he would raise an eyebrow or wave back.

"We knew he was a very important person and somehow connected to the war effort," Milholland said. "But as an 8-year-old, if anybody had asked me what kind of a scientist he was, I wouldn't have been able to tell him."

Once, as a teenager, Milholland introduced himself to Einstein on the sidewalk and recounted the terror he felt the day he collected newspapers. The scientist burst into laughter, then said it was nice he had stopped to say hello.

Milholland, who moved to Seattle to complete his architectural studies at the University of Washington, gradually learned more about his former neighbor. Now a full-time painter, at 64 he's the same age Einstein was when Milholland visited the house of the strange "old man" across the street.

Einstein lived in the Mercer Street home until his death in 1955. The man who didn't mingle much with his neighbors left a legacy for them: a gift to the city of Princeton to replace the stately elm trees that had been felled by Dutch elm disease.

Keith Ervin's phone message number is 206-464-2105. His e-mail address is kervin@seattletimes.co.