Mill-Dow Roots: Lawrence Noll

The Noll homestead 1918. Pictured (L-R) Bloss Noll, Maria (Mary) Noll, Dora Noll ?, Clara Noll ?, Bill Noll and Lawrence Noll

Lawrence Noll was born April 22 1894 in Mooney Creek Kansas. His father Bloss was born in Germany, and his mother Maria born in St. Charles MO. They were among the first settlers in the Kansas Territory in the late 1850s. Lawrence had eleven siblings. As a young man he played baseball and was noted by the Atchison Daily Globe on June 9 1914 as a "pretty good hitter". According to the Winchester Star on what apparently was a real slow news week on April 24 1908 "Lawrence Noll shot a large possum in a tree. It had eleven young ones".

Lawrence and Minnie Noll Wedding Day Photos 1920

In 1920 he married Minnie Corpstein. They hosted a wedding dance and took off for a honeymoon in Chicago. Family lore has it that when he was dating Minnie her home being several miles away from his, he would drive home late in a wagon often sleeping in the back and letting the horse just take him home waking up by the barn. He played the fiddle and hosted dances in the loft of a large barn he built in 1920. It still stands today. He and Minnie farmed and raised four children one being Ruth's mother Helen. Ruth remembers her grandfather as a quiet kind man. He passed away on April 21, 1976 one day shy of his 82nd birthday.