132. Some notes on my paternal grandfather

I have written before, although not in some time, on matters of my personal genealogy. Like many amateur genealogists, I get in the mood to do some genealogical research and in fact will then do quite a bit, but then I'll lay off for some time, some time being periods of time ranging from a few months to several years. It would be wrong to assign a date as to when my interest in genealogy began. As a child, my family (which really means the families of my maternal grandparents) were habitually in the business of genealogy whether they knew it or not. Both of them were from large families based in Franklin County, Kentucky, and specifically in western Franklin County and to a small extent eastern Shelby and northwestern Anderson counties.

On any given weekend, we spent time along Old Louisville Road between Bridgeport and Graefenburg (pronounced with an "s", as in Graefensburg) at the home of my great-grandfather Robert Lewis, Sr. I've written of this before. Another of my great-grandfathers, Elijah Hockensmith, Sr., lived closer to Frankfort late in his life on Cavern Drive off Louisville Road near the Juniper Hills Golf Course. Prior to that, he lived along the Devils Hollow Road, on the way to Chaoteville, a small commnuity named for my 3-greats grandfather's family, the Choates originally from Ipswich, Massachusetts, and before that Ipswich, England. As both of them were from large families, I got to know my second and third cousins, as well as their in-laws families, and others. We regularly visited small family cemeteries scattered throughout the area as well as the two larger ones, the Frankfort Cemetery up on the hill on the east side of town, and the Sunset Cemetery, out along Versailles Road southeast of town. Genealogy is a sort of past-time for all of these people.

I can trace the families of my maternal grandfather Dan Hockensmith back ten generations (from me) to a Konrad Hockensmith, Sr., born in the early 1700s in Maryland. The family of my maternal grandmother Vivian "Tommie" Lewis Hockensmith has been traced back twelve generations to a James A. Galbraith, Sr., also of Maryland, and born in 1666. My knowledge on my father's side of the family is an entirely different and much shorter story.

A couple of years ago, I finally learned a great deal about the family of my paternal grandmother Grace Irene Lee Noble. Her family roots, to my surprise, are for the most part right here in Jefferson County, in the Saint Andrews Church Road area, and further back, west over to Greenwood Road toward what is now the Southwest Jefferson Boat Ramp and the Farnsley-Moreman House. Her families names include her own of Lee, then Schlenk, Antle, Prince, Ross, then to an eighth generation back and Mr. Hugh Logan. I do not have birth or death dates of Hugh Logan, but he apparently lived along the river opposite of where the Caesar's Casino sits on the opposite shore at Bridgeport, Indiana. There are family cemeteries off St. Andrews Church Road and Blanton Lane, containing the remains of my ancestors.

But today's entry is prompted by thoughts on my paternal grandfather, Gene Noble, who died twenty years ago today, July 5, 1987. Although he lived longer (and was older) than my other three grandparents, and lived closer to me geographically, at the time of his death, just 2 and 1/2 blocks away, of him and his family I know the least. I'm not really even sure of his given name. He went by the initials of U. G., which got nicked into Gene, probably short for Eugene, which was not his name. When he retired, some of his Social Security papers, which I filled out for him, had him as Ulan Noble. He had two brothers who also had initials as their given names, or so the story goes. J. G. Noble and R. G. Noble are two uncles I never met. J. G. lived in western Tennessee, I think in the town of Milledgeville. R. G. lived in Bakersfield, California. I assume they are both deceased, but I truly do not know that. To my knowledge, there was also a sister, Hazel, about whom I know nothing. I remember being told there are other older brothers and sisters as well as more than a handful of half-brothers and half-sisters. Apparently my great-grandfather Noble was into procreation. His name, to my knowledge, was James Aaron (or Arson) Noble. He died in 1912 or 1913 "out west," supposedly near Carson City, Nevada. The population of Carson City at the time of his death was about 1600 people. He is said to have been buried "along the side of the road." From me to my father to his father and to this James Aaron Noble is the extent of my knowledge of the Noble line.

Of my grandfather U. G. Noble, I can tell you a little. He was born in Alabama, or so I believe. His father died when he was six. I never heard mention of his mother. He wandered as a young kid, pre-teen and adolescent, out west. He eventually made his way back east. He was a baker by trade, coming to Louisville to work for the Donaldson Bakery Company, then located at 16th and Hill streets (I think). He also worked for baking companies in Cincinnati and Dayton. He married my grandmother in 1933, which means she was 18 at the time and he was 25. They lived somewhere along the L&N Railroad tracks near Holy Name Church. They had three sons, Don, my Dad (whose given name is Urban Gene Noble, Jr., despite the fact there is no Urban Gene Noble, Sr.), and Chris. Eventually my grandparents went in business for themselves operating the Noble's Bakery, first on the southwest corner of Central and Colorado avenues in South Louisville, then later in the Strickland Center, a strip mall at the corner of Naomi Drive and Poplar Level Road, in the Beverly Manor subdivision, one of the many subdivision that sprung up in the north and east ends of Okolona as a result of General Electric's Appliance Park being built nearby. There was a brief period in which they operated a bakery in Campbellsville, Kentucky, although I don't really know the full story there. My grandparents retired after his 65th birthday and sold the bakery in 1972 to a guy named Bud Brutscher. My grandmother died tragically in 1976, afterwhich my grandfather became something of a hermit, moving from their tri-level home in Okolona to a 650 square foot one-bedroom apartment in Fincastle, a part of Camp Taylor. There he lived for most of the rest of his life, save a period at his youngest's son's house in Shelby County right at the end. As I said, he died twenty years ago today. Although his obituary in the Courier-Journal listed his age at 81, he was in fact only 80. He was born November 20, 1906. His survivors were his three sons (one of whom, Don, has since died), two grandchildren (me and my brother Kevin), and one great-granddaughter, my oldest niece Lindsey, who was born two weeks prior to his death. The brothers J. G and R. G. were not mentioned in his obituary. He and my grandmother are buried in the Louisville Memorial Gardens West, on Dixie Highway in Shviely, next to my grandmother's sister and brother-in-law Mary and McHenry Hiner.

I write this on the outside remote chance someone in my extended Noble family, someone I obviously do not know, will Google the family name and recognize some of the players listed herein. It is an outside chance, but you never know. The internet is an amazing invention.