THE BIOGRAPGY OF
DOROTHY LOVENIA WALMER NOBLE
BY JOSHUA NOBLE
AGE 16
10TH GRADE
WRITTEN 2009-2010
Pictured above is the Walmer
Home.
It was in the town of
Wooster, OH that Floyd and Edith Conkle Walmer lived. Floyd Walmer was born in 1890, and Grace his
sister was born in 1892 to John and Armenia (Minnie) Walmer.
Pictured above are Floyd and Grace Walmer
John, Minnie, Floyd and Grace Walmer
Pictured above is John Walmer
Early on in life,
Floyd had wanted to become a physician, but it was expensive and had to earn a
lot of money for tuition. One of his
friends who was actually one of his father’s hands on his farm, was Karl
Compton who got his PhD in Physics. He
later became the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and
later became one of the leading scientists who created the Atomic Bomb.
Grace Walmer invited over two local girls to her house while
Floyd was in Ohio Northern University.
One of those girls invited Grace to invite to spend Christmas with her
family. So, Grace went over there and
Floyd, who had returned home for the holidays, accompanied her. The girl was Edith Naomi Conkle.
Grace Walmer Casey
Bert and Grace Walmer Casey
Edith Conkle Walmer above
Floyd and Edith were
married in August of 1914. Floyd and
Edith ran a hotel called Liberty Hotel in Wooster. However, the hotel didn’t do too well. Furthermore, Grace was very sick with
nephritis. So, they sold the hotel and
moved back home to help on his father (John Walmer)’s farm.
Pictured above is the wedding
photo of Floyd and Edith Walmer, August 1914
Grace Walmer Casey unfortunately died a few weeks
later.
Grace Walmer Casey. She was only 23 years old.
Floyd and Edith moved to Wooster
where he Floyd got a job at a rubber plant.
After the rubber plant went bankrupt, he worked at a machine shop. Then he went to work at a pickle
factory. The pickle factory was not to
his liking, so they moved back to John Walmer’s farm where he maintained it,
and helped his father in painting.
Several works by John and Floyd still survive today.
A painting that was painted by
John Walmer
In fact, one is in the possession of Harry Walmer, their
youngest son. Floyd and John Walmer
decided to downsize, so they sold their 160 acre farm and moved about 1 mile
east to a smaller farm of 63 acres. The
160 acre farm was a wedding gift from his father in law after his marriage to
Minnie. At the time of the move, Edith
was pregnant and Minnie was sick with pneumonia. But they managed it.
Virginia Walmer Hunter
On May 1, 1920, Virginia Walmer was born. During her childhood, she always had to take
care of the chickens on the farm when school was out and was active in the 4H
club. She was sent through High School,
and she went on to a business college.
She was the secretary of the board of the 4H directory. She went to Wooster every day.
Floyd Walmer’s favorite thing to play was crocket. His daughter, Dorothy later said,
“We played crocket a lot.
My father had a crocket diamond that was used not just for us kids, but
for different groups that was a crocket team throughout the county there and
they’d always come down to my Dad’s crocket field to compete in the final
competition. So, that was my favorite
game was crocket.”
Twins Dorothy and Dean Walmer, 14
mos old
Minnie died in August of 1920. On December 25, 1922 twins were born to Floyd
and Edith Walmer. The twins were named
Dorothy Lovenia and Dean. They were born
at home. Dorothy was pronounced dead on
arrival. She was wrapped in a blanket
and placed on the kitchen table while and laid there for a couple of hours
while the doctor took care of Edith and Dean. The doctor was about to leave and was putting
his coat on, when Dorothy began to cry.
Dorothy said, “My daddy said that he never saw that doctor move so fast
in all his life because he got to me, and did what he needed to do. Of course, he had to wait another couple of
hours. But I did all right, and they
never could understand how I could lay there like that for two hours before I’d
come to life. ”
Virginia (who was
then 3), was at a neighbor’s house and she was brought home afterwards and she
was brought over to where her new siblings were. She stood over Dean, looking with curiosity
and marveling when Dorothy started fussing.
She went over to Dorothy’s basket and said, “Oh Mommy, look here, here’s
another one”.
They made the house larger by adding a new kitchen. Furthermore, electric lines had reached their
farm and running water was installed (they used a pump beforehand). In 1925, Harry Walmer was born to Edith and
Floyd. In 1927, John Walmer got
interested into Mary Runkle who had previously been divorced. Because Floyd and Edith didn’t approve of
her, John took one acre and he and Floyd built a 2 story house. John (69) married Mary (52) on July 1, 1928. On December 26, 1933, Dorothy was in her
bedroom and from her window; she could see her grandfather’s workshop. Suddenly, she saw her grandfather’s work
hands carrying her grandfather out of the workshop. They laid him on the couch. They said that he died instantly. Later, they learned that it was a heart
attack which happened while he was reaching up to get something for a
customer. When the heart attack
happened, he fell to the ground. Before
John died, he told Mary that she have the farm.
However, after he died, she was told by the attorneys that everything
including the house, farm, and possessions were to be passed down to Floyd’s
children. Mary was furious. She sold all the furniture at auction. Floyd was only able to buy back a small
amount due to the depression. Mary
burned the rest where Floyd could see it.
Afterwards, Mary moved to live with the children of her previous
marriage, Floyd rented the house.
“We went to a two room country school.” Dorothy later said about her school. “1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th in one room, and 5th,
6th, 7, and 8th in the other room and, we always had a good time in
school. All the kids were friendly,
mostly farm kids and we walked to school.
We didn’t have a school bus then until later when I was about in 7th
grade. We had a school bus that came
around and surprised the school kids and one of them was my sister. He (the driver) said that he would take us to
school so we got up and rode to school after that because we had to walk a mile
and a half to school.”
They were all active in 4H and both boys helped on the
farm. Dorothy and Virginia mostly helped
in the garden. Their main jobs were to
feed the chickens, collect the eggs, and milk the cows. Dorothy had a calf that was brown and white. Her calf was named Dolly and was entered into
different competitions. One of the
things that they grew in the farm was mushrooms which Edith liked a whole lot.
Virginia took piano, and Dorothy like Mozart would listen to
her sister play, and then get up on the piano after Virginia was done and play
the exact same thing. She learned it all
by ear and plays very beautifully today.
Grandpa Harvey Conkle, with Walmer Twins, Dorothy and Dean.
Edith, Grace and Virginia also pictured.
Grandpa Conkle with Virginia,
Twins, Dorothy and Dean (babies in his lap)
Grandpa Conkle lived in Holmes County, Ohio. The children’s summer vacations were to go
down to Grandpa Conkle’s farm and spend a week there. They went two at a time. They also visited their aunt who lived there
in Akron.
Grandpa Conkle in the buggy at
his home
It was in mid 1935 that Dorothy was in Akron, OH. She got Diphtheria and had a fever at 107
degrees. This usually leads to brain
damage. However, it soon turned into
Scarlet Fever. During this time, she had
a vision in which there were bright lights with a fence and flowers. There was a voice that told her that it wasn’t
her time to be there and that He needed her children. The Lord eventually touched her body and made
her well.
Dean Walmer, taken in 1933
On November 5, 1935, a boy named Roy Metsker was driving to
High School. His car ran out of gas and
Dean (12) and 3 other boys saw him. They
helped Roy push the car to a neighbor’s house for gas. It was time for school to start, so he told
them to jump on the running board and he’d give them a ride because it was a
half mile to school. They were pulling
into the driveway and Roy made a wide turn to give them a sort of thrill. Dean flew off the running board he was on, and
crashed into a tree. His parents were
notified, and Dean was taken to the Wooster hospital. He was dead by the time his parents got
there. The doctors said that had he
survived, he would have been paralyzed from the neck down. Dorothy (12) and Harry (2) were at Edith’s
sister and brother in law’s house in Akron, OH.
Dorothy and her 4H Banner
When Dorothy was 17, she was still in 4H and she won the
salad making competition. She got her
picture taken and put in the Ohio State News Sheet. It was one of her crowning achievements at
4H.
Dorothy attended High School and was even on the basketball
team as guard. After Dorothy graduated
from High School in Wooster, OH, she went to work at Keani’s Cafeteria as
waitress, and salad girl. When she was
19, she and her father ordered an accordion out of a Montgomery catalog because she wanted to learn how to play it.
She taught herself how to play the accordion. She was later invited to different churches
that had revival meetings to play her accordion and sing hymns.
Dorothy and her Accordian
In 1942, Virginia married Wayne Hunter. Floyd and Edith Walmer took Dorothy to one of
her first revival meetings. One of the
singers there was Clifford Noble, who was the lead singer for his church and
there was also another man and fellow evangelist called Wade Jakeway. Jakeway who could sing and play the accordion
whom was one of Clifford’s friends from Michigan. They met after the service.
In January of 1944, Harry Walmer was drafted into the U.S.
Army Corps (this was before they invented the U.S. Air Force). He arrived in England in November of that
same year, and he was assigned to fly in as a gunner in one of the lower
turrets of a B-17 bomber during WWII. He
was in the 379th Bomb Group.
His group attacked and destroyed different Nazi places in Germany, such
as railroad stations, gun factories, bomb factories, and even fought in a few
battles including the Battle of the Bulge, one of the worst battles of WWII for
both sides.
Clifford and Dorothy Noble’s Wedding picture 1943
The Floyd Walmer Family
Taken in 1944
Top row: Dorothy, Clifford Noble, Wayne Hunter, Virginia
Floyd, Harry, and Edith (Conkle) Walmer
Floyd, Harry, and Edith (Conkle) Walmer
Meanwhile, back in Ohio, Dorothy Walmer was married Clifford
Noble on December 25, 1943. They went on
their honeymoon by going down to West Virginia for a couple of days to visit
and stay with his grandparents and then returning. Immediately after graduating from Anderson
University, Clifford and Dorothy moved to Pontiac, Michigan. While they were there, Dorothy gave birth to
twins named Ronald Eugene and Roger on Sunday, in 1945. While the twins were being born, Harry Walmer
had just been mustered out of the U.S. Army Corps and was flying across the
Atlantic Ocean. In 1946, Clifford went
to Anderson College and later became a minister after he graduated.
Dorothy with Twins, Roger and Ronald
Twins Roger and Ronald at 4
months old
1954
The twins with Great Grandma Susie Trodgen Holland
Harry arrived home where he went to college at Bob Jones
University in Cleveland, South Carolina.
He met, fell in love with, and married fellow student Loretta Mick
‘Mickey’ in 1949.
In 1948, Floyd retired from active farming at the age of
58. He still kept 1 cow, several pigs,
and many chickens. He carried on his
side career of painting and became a ward attendant at Apple Creek Hospital
which was nearby. As was said before,
Floyd at an early age had wanted to pursue a medical career, but didn’t have
enough money to attend the college.
In 1950, Pamela Noble was born to Dorothy and
Clifford Noble. In 1951, Brenda Walmer
was born to Harry and Mickey Walmer. On
March 17, 1952, Patricia Noble was born to Dorothy and Clifford Noble, but she
had heart problems (had a hole in her heart) and unfortunately lived for only 5
days.
In 1952, after Harry and Mickey
graduated, the family moved to a cabin just outside of Benhams, Tennessee. Harry became a pastor in 3 churches. In July of 1954, Mickey gave birth to Timothy
Walmer. In 1954, Randall Noble was born to Dorothy and Clifford Noble.
It was in July of 1959 that Clifford, Dorothy, and their children moved to Newberry, South Carolina where Clifford became a pastor there. In 1959, Clifford became the pastor of First Church of God. He was there until 1969. In all the churches that Clifford was a pastor of, Dorothy played the piano and/or organ, taught in Sunday school, in 1957, Floyd sold the cow and the chickens later in 1960.
Clifford Noble
1943
In August of that same year, Harry became the pastor of
Calvary Community Church in Statesville, South Carolina where they had
moved. In June of 1956, Clifford,
Dorothy, and their children moved to Alabama where Clifford became a pastor in
Ashland and later, Townley. It was in
the fall of that year that Clifford was away in Pennsylvania and Dorothy got to
preach a sermon. In 1957, Mickey gave
birth to Mark Walmer. In 1957, Rodney Noble was born to Dorothy and Clifford Noble in the Newberry,
South Carolina Hospital.It was in July of 1959 that Clifford, Dorothy, and their children moved to Newberry, South Carolina where Clifford became a pastor there. In 1959, Clifford became the pastor of First Church of God. He was there until 1969. In all the churches that Clifford was a pastor of, Dorothy played the piano and/or organ, taught in Sunday school, in 1957, Floyd sold the cow and the chickens later in 1960.
Children: Ronald, Roger, Pam, Randy and Rodney
taken in 1960
Meanwhile, also in 1960, John Walmer was born to Harry and Mickey Walmer in South Carolina. Floyd forcibly retired later that same year from his job at Apple Creek State Hospital at the age of 70. Clifford had a radio station, and was on the air for 12 minutes every Saturday. Sometimes, he even recorded and played the twins singing (they were about 15 or 16 then), with Dorothy playing the piano and sometimes singing. The hogs were finally sold in 1961, making Floyd Walmer officially retired from farming. He still made extra money by doing interior decorating. Floyd Walmer died in 1963 at the age of 73.
In 1967, Harry left the church and returned to Bob Jones
University to get his Ph.d in school administration. After they realized that the commute was too
much, the entire family moved back to Greenville, SC, where they presently
live.
In 1969, after trying to maintain the farm, Edith Walmer had
a stroke. The land was sold and Edith
moved in with Virginia and Wayne Hunter where they took care of her until her
death in 1980.
Somewhere in between 1996 and 1998, Clifford Noble
retired. He and Dorothy lived in Warren,
Ohio, right around the corner from First Church of God and attended there. They lived a quiet and nice life in a
home.
Clifford and Dorothy Noble August 29, 1992
On Tuesday, August 3, 2004, Rev.
Clifford Noble died presumably of heart failure (heart attack). Dorothy was soon moved down to Georgia where
most children lived around 2006.
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On January 15, 2011, Dorothy Lovenia Walmer Noble had a massive stroke while doing
her devotions (the Bible was open to the book of Exodus) that left her right
side paralyzed. Grandma Noble passed away at 3:15 A.M. on January 19, 2011. She had a beautiful funeral in Georgia with
family and friends on January 21, 2011 and another funeral followed by a burial
in Rittman, Ohio on January 23, 2011.
She was 88 years old.
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