My grandparents
Joseph Russell Noel, Sr. was the son of Edgar Moses Noel and Josephine Brunell. Joseph (or Russell as he was called) married Isabelle Mary Gibbons on October 29, 1932 in Boston, MA. This couple would be my grandparents.
Joseph and Isabelle settled in Brockton after their marriage. It is not known why they went to Boston to be married. My father remembers that Isabelle's mother, Nellie Ryan, did not like Russell, so an elopement wouldn't be out of the question.
There is a picture of Isabelle and Russell standing on some train tracks in front of what looks exactly like the west side of the Hoosic Tunnel in North Adams. My father didn't recall any kind of railroad tunnel in Brockton, but his sister seem to think that the picture was taken in Brockton.
Russell and Isabelle had the following children. Dates of birth will not be posted for those that are still living:
Mary Ellen
It is not known exactly how long this couple stayed married. From the personal recollections of their son (my father) Joseph, Russell was an alcoholic. Isabelle, who was Irish to the core, had a low tolerance for foolishness--especially that of a drunken husband. This was the breeding ground for many arguments--some were even physical on Isabelle's part. My father recalls her slinging an entire iron skillet of baked beans (must have been Saturday night!) at Russell when he came in drunk one evening; injuring his eye and causing him to be led to the hospital by my father. Dad always said that not only did Russell never raise a hand to Isabelle, he told Dad more than once, "Any man who hits a woman is no man"--words that my father not only lived by, but passed on to his own son.
Russell and Isabelle eventually divorced; the date of this event is not known. According to the copy of her application, Isabelle applied for a Social Security number in August of 1940, a couple of weeks after her 28th birthday. Back in those times, one usually didn't worry with a Social Security number unless one was seeking employment; so it was around that date that Isabelle was at least planning for what was to come.
Russell died on January 29, 1949, at his sister Viola's home on Belmont Street in Brockton. His cause of death was heart disease and tuberculosis. His marital condition on his death certificate was listed as divorced. Paul Pelaquin, son of Viola, one told me that he thought Russell "died of a broken heart" because of his divorce. He was laid to rest in Calvary Cemetery in Brockton.
Isabelle would live 39 more years after the death of Russell. She would see 4 of her 5 her children grow up, marry, and have children of their own; she would live to see some of those children make her a great-grandmother. (Sadly, Linda has not been heard from, to my knowledge, for over 40 years.) Isabelle would never remarry, although she "kept company" with Sam Hebshie (now deceased) for as long as I could remember. When she was asked why she wouldn't marry Sammy (he asked her many times), she would say, "Because when he pisses me off, I can say, 'Sam, it's time for you to go home'--and he goes!!"
Isabelle died on January 18, 1988 of stomach cancer. She was also buried in Calvary Cemetery.
My grandfather, Russell, passed away before I was born, so I have no personal recollection of him. I have a few pictures of him--he seemed to be of about medium height and wiry build, with dark hair and thick dark eyebrows.
I remember Isabelle, or "Nanny", as a no nonsense yet humorous grandma (if that makes sense!). This temperament was shared by not only my father, but myself as well. She and I wrote letters back and forth when I was a teenager, and she visited us every February. She would take me out of school, by myself, for an afternoon for lunch and then out for ice cream. She would do the same on another day for my brother, so she could have individual time with us. Lunch, in Nanny's mind, was never complete without ice cream; even as an adult, she would take me to lunch and then to Friendly's ice cream parlor. My local grocery store sells Friendly's ice cream now, and I think of Nanny every time I see it. I can also remember getting sick one year when she was visiting, and she made me hot tea and raisin bread toast. To this day, that's what I want when I'm sick. Nanny loved purple; and as you can tell from most of these pages, so do I. I remember her as a lady who laughed a lot and always smelled like White Shoulders. I miss her.
The information from this page came almost exclusively from the recollections of the webmaster and her father, Joseph Russell Noel, Jr. Other sources include:
Copy of Isabelle Gibbons Noel's application for a Social Secuirty number, copy of Russell Noel's birth and death records, Isabelle's death record, copy of Isabelle and Russell's marriage record, and obituaries from the Brockton Enterprise. I am grateful to Larry Noonan for gathering much of this information for me.
This page was updated April 2009. .
Noel Family of Brockton, MA by Jolynn Noel Winland is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States LicenseWhat does this mean? .
Email: littleangeljw@yahoo.com
