kw: memorials, photo essays, photographs
Those of us lucky enough to grow up with an active, extended have wonderful "home-grown friends," our cousins and their parents. The boy cousin on my father's side, whom I called Gordon, was the only son of my father's sister Martha and her husband Jim Noyes. They were a stalwart Christian family, and I learned I could rely on "Uncle Jim and Aunt Martha" for counsel and valuable advice, which I sorely needed a few times.
Martha was born October 17, 1919. She passed away earlier today, November 13, 2020, age 101. After my father died 2½ years ago, preceded by my mother in 2004, Martha was my last connection to her generation.
This kind of infant photo was very popular at the time, and for a generation or two earlier. I have a photo like this of her mother, my grandmother.
In this photo Martha and her brother Buddy or Bud, my father Jim, are about six and four years old, respectively. They were close all their lives. Cute kids!
About fifteen years later she had grown into a beauty. She and a Navy man, Jim Noyes, were married October 22, 1940. They were married 58 years.
Here, Martha and Jim's son Gordon is the small boy on the lap of our great-grandfather J.G. Nye. His daughter Inez, our grandmother, is at the far right and her husband Earl, our grandfather, is in back, near center, next to Jim Noyes.
My mother and father are at far left, and I am in my father's arms. Martha is next to her father, peeking between my dad's cousin Paul and his wife.
This picture was taken about 1950 in Alhambra, California.
This is how I remember Jim and Martha, once their son and I were young adults, and I was still living in California and could see them frequently. Later when I was there on a business trip I would see them.
I remember going to church with them a couple of times, years earlier, when I would stay over for a visit. My family was Methodist, and in that near-Episcopal tradition, "God's frozen chosen", church services were quiet, and sermons were more like lectures.
The Noyes family went to a Baptist church, the congregation was more vocal, and the preacher could do Fire-n-Brimstone with the best of them. I was impressed, and perhaps a little apprehensive.
I don't know when it was; a few years earlier when I was still in high school, the family spent a year in India. Although it was business-related for Jim, they took advantage of the opportunity to work with missionaries on Gospel work. Later they also spent a few months in Israel using Christian films to proclaim the Gospel.
These two pictures, taken in 1990 and 1996, show Martha and Jim and my parents together, first as new retirees, and then at my parents' Fiftieth Anniversary party. The other couple at their table are my mom's sister and her husband.
This picture was taken in her assisted living facility in Fremont, where we held a memorial for my father. Here she is talking to my wife and a few others, wearing an expression I like, her "I'm messing with your mind" look. I don't recall what she had just said.
We promised to return the following year for her birthday.
Here she is, wearing a little crown. She has two grandsons. One is at the second "0" in "100", and the other at the far left, behind a family friend holding a guinea pig. The others are some of the 100 or more people who came to the party. Martha was a kind of mother hen and spiritual adviser to many, many people.
Monday this week she called me to tell me "Happy Birthday". One of her grandsons had been keeping us up to date on her failing condition. She sounded a little weak, but still quite clear. I am so glad for that phone call.
May God richly reward her for something like ninety years of faithful and loving service to Him.
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