24 | February | 2025 | Theresa Donahoe

Tomorrow would have been mi abuela’s 101st birthday if she had lived that long:

Miss you Grandma Esther

Grandma Esther lived to be 96 years old, which is pretty amazing. Or as my niece Brittany put it, “she was really old for a really long time!” Brittany was able to grow up with a great grandmother and Grandma Esther stuck around long enough to meet Brittany’s first-born child and my grandma’s great great grandchild. How many people can say that?

In other family news, I just found out my Aunt Brenda passed away.

She was married to my Uncle Mike who passed away over 10 years ago and I hadn’t seen her since his memorial service. I didn’t know many details about her life except that she was originally from the Bay Area and that she and my uncle lived in El Cerrito when they were younger before eventually moving to the Tahoe area. But I know Ancestry.com will help me flesh out that branch of the family tree more. Rest In Peace Aunt Brenda.

Tonight, research-wise, I decided to continue to focus on my paternal great grandfather Ed Noble’s family. He and two of his siblings came to San Francisco in the early 1900s from Kansas. Although Ed and his brother George were born on the East Coast, his family settled in the Midwest.

George Mason Noble, my Great Grand Uncle, according to my Grandma Gerry: “George married Ethyl Russell, an odd ball. They met while she fed his horses sugar cubes. He was a streetcar conductor at the time (horse drawn trolley-1906). George went into the shoe business and was quite successful. They had one daughter Beatrix, called “Trixie.”

Oh, how I wish I could find a picture of him being a streetcar conductor, or even seeing a picture of his wife Ehtyl, being “an odd ball.” They sounded like an interesting couple. I did find a fun newspaper article though about them having a dinner party for five generations of family. Sound familiar?