If  Mom had known I would be writing about her, I would probably have been in big  trouble. You see, she didn’t care for attention. Juanita Noel was a self conscious, private woman and she didn't like attention at all. General sentiment is that this most likely stemmed from a lifelong struggle with sporadic but severe asthma and eczema.  Mom was born at home in the winter of 1932 and while growing up in Portsmouth, Ohio during those depression and war years, both of those ailments were still oddities.  People would curiously stare and callously whisper about her skin problems and battle to breathe. Often the pain of scrutiny and ridicule  was harder to bear than her afflictions.  Mom, however, was by no means weak and she lived as full of a happy and fun childhood as any preacher's daughter could. Before long, there came a brother and sister to fight with, play with, endure whippings with and love.  There were also dolls to be attended to, bikes to be  ridden and books to be read.  Hopscotch, jump rope, tag, jacks, snowball fights and an assortment of made up games were always the norm.

       Grandpa was a kind, firm man that Jesus transformed from a wildcat, motorcycle racing hellian into a respectable go-getter. He was always working at least one job but usually many. Grandma was a typical housewife for that era with a great sense of humor and a red hot streak of stubbornness that could halt the ocean tides. Both were adventurous souls and both were jokesters. This all made for a very interesting childhood, to say the least and Mom knew she could always find an ally and a  sympathetic ear in our soft spoken, salt-of-the-earth, Great-Grandmother Gray.  On one cool, Florida winter night in the late 1930’s, Mom laid frozen with fear in a nest of pillows and blankets in the backseat of the family car. Tired but desperately trying to not fall asleep, she was convinced that staying awake was her only chance of surviving an imminent attack from the alligators that were bellowing in the dark nearby. Grandpa had brainstormed a road trip to Florida and Grandma was ready, willing and excited  to pack up the family sedan with sandwiches, blankets and an assortment of other supplies.  Off they went!  Mostly, they camped during the trip, just like that night beside the little alligator park where Mom was convinced her young life would tragically end. Days later at the Miami docks, Grandpa haggled for a massive bunch of bananas right off the boat. He climbed up on the running board of the car, tied his gold and green treasure to the roof, and off they went again, feasting all the way home.  Mom never really cared for bananas after that.

   One thing that Mom did love was music and when the church needed a pianist, Grandpa gifted her a shiny new upright piano to learn on. Mom attacked the keys with vigor and her heart poured through her fingers and into the ivory.  Dreams of becoming a concert pianist never materialized in her life but Mom always had a melody in her heart and she would often return to the piano to comfort her soul. The 1930’s rolled into the 1940’s and there was so much to do: movies to see, music to enjoy, boys to flirt with, soldiers to write to, picnics to attend.  …and church; there was lots and lots of church.  Like so many teens in those years, Mom left her high school studies before she graduated and joined the workforce. She hit it hard and loved the world that having her own income opened up to her.  Mom found her niche as a  counter girl at H.L. Greens Five & Dime Store but the shop had to make special accommodation for Mom by assigning her very own wooden crate just so she could be seen above some of the taller cases..  Did I mention that Mom was a bit short in stature?

  Something that Mom wasn’t short on, though, was spirit.  With her very own money, she celebrated adulthood with a Greyhound Bus trip to Nashville, on an adventure to experience the Grand Ole Opry first hand.  Perhaps bashful and timid when you met her, Grandma’s hot headed stubbornness ran in her veins, too and she would often surprise people when it boiled to the top. Exactly when young Arnold Noel first experienced this, I’m not sure but he would come to know it very well and often. Mom caught Dad’s eye in the little church that Grandpa pastored and my Dad loved her from then until the day he died.  On a pleasant June day in 1952,  Mom was lamenting a fresh grease smear on the bottom of her dress while fuming that not only did Grandpa shanghai her plans for a small wedding by inviting the entire city in a newspaper ad, but to make matters worse, he ordered ice cream bars for the reception. Ice cream bars! Who serves ice cream bars at a wedding reception? My Grandpa; that’s who.  Even though murder may have been on her mind, pictures from that day clearly show that love and joy was in her heart and our Mom was a stunningly beautiful and happy bride.

   After first settling into a little Brooklyn basement apartment, Mom and Dad traveled back to Ohio where they put in action a plan for the greatest adventure of all: children. Mom took the title of wife very seriously and when kids burst onto the scene, she rose to the challenge as mom.  After a couple years, opportunity turned their young eyes west and they chased that atomic-era, television dream all the way to California where they danced to the radio while their children played with homemade board games that Mom helped them create. She made learning fun and Kindergarten teachers would be frustrated that there was nothing new for them to teach us.  A staunch believer in equal treatment for her children, Mom meticulously regulated treats right down to the color of each Easter basket jelly bean and she never hesitated to take every step she could to assure our appearance was always clean and proper so that we might never experience the same cruel ridicule she suffered in her youth.  Sometimes, her health problems and the chaos generated by small, screaming maniacs could overwhelm Mom’s inherent need for organization and order, but she tempered a hard hand with love and soldiered on. With girls in the lead at 3 to 1, the arrival of my second brother should have been an exceptionally joyous event but when he came, he came too early.  Even with the best medical treatment of the day, his little lungs just weren’t strong enough and he graduated to heaven after two short, sorrowful days.  Dad carried his little casket through the grassy cemetery and he carried Mom through the darkest days of her life.  To say she was devastated would be a tragic understatement.. My older siblings recount early memories of a different person than the Mom I knew.  Dark clouds eventually lessened, laughter returned to the household and after a few years, diapers and bottles made a comeback.  Fortune and prosperity waxed and waned for our family in California and a work accident and Dad’s resulting injury prompted an eventual retreat to Ohio where relatives could help Mom with her five little monsters during his recuperation.

   Years passed and as we all got taller, smarter and mouthier, Mom lived for us and through each of us.  …and later, her beloved grandchildren.  She shared in our victories or sorrows and felt them as her own. Her love language may have seemed atypical at times but her love and affection for us was sincere and heartfelt, even if we couldn’t always recognize it until later.  An exclamation of  “I’m proud of you” from our Mother carried the tenfold weight of “I love you”  plus the adoration that emanated from every atom of her oversized heart.  Mom would waste no time in grabbing that telephone receiver and firing off our praises like a machine gunner; mowing down any and all who would listen.  Heaven help those who would criticize any of her children and grandchildren; the weapon was the same but the ammunition far more deadly.  As mentioned above, Mom never graduated high school but through self sacrifice and much tough love, she counted among her greatest successes the fact that each of her six children graduated the same alma mater that she regretfully abandoned many years before. 

   As time slipped by, the older voices on the other end of Mom’s telephone line were gradually replaced with younger ones.  She mourned loved ones lost and rejoiced at new babies born. Mom never would entertain the thought of remarrying after our Dad died; she had no desire.  She had so sincerely and deeply devoted herself to him that she felt that she could realize no greater purpose than to honor and herald his memory by supporting the family that they had built together.  For her many remaining years, Mom selflessly poured herself out for us with her time, wisdom and love. She lived a happy life in her tidy and orderly little apartments, proudly adorning them with  pictures of children, grandchildren and those she loved most. The time came eventually that the adversaries of age and ailment waged a battle against her and at the age of 85, she quietly and peacefully drew her last breath while surrounded by those that she dearly adored.

   If you walk down the grassy hillside to Mom & Dad’s final resting place,  you will see engraved across the bottom of their smooth, gray headstone the elegant words, “Our Love and Strength Lives On”.  I am happy and genuinely grateful to report that it indeed truly does.

Juanita Scaff Noel

1932-2018