Valentines for a lifetime

Dorcas and Glen Noble, on their wedding day.

Dorcas Clark took the train to Appleton City in 1946 to visit a friend, Alma Smith, who had recently moved there from Walker. Glen Noble was going to high school and working for Katy Railroad picking up and delivering the mail to the post office and he was at the depot. Glen was a friend of the Smith family, so Alma introduced Dorcas to Glen. Sparks sort of flew, but Dorcas came back to Walker and continued school. In the summer of 1947, Glen went with Eddie Smith to California and worked there. Dorcas and Glen corresponded all that summer. The courtship continued when he came back to Appleton City. They were married May 21, 1949.

"It was just a simple little church wedding," Dorcas said, "but maybe it was unusual in that it was a double ring and a double wedding."

Alma Smith and Wayne Borland joined them at the altar in the Methodist Church in Walker, Mo., to be wed at the same time. A double wedding was not enough; the couples went on their honeymoon together. Wayne and Alma didn't have a car so they paid for the gasoline and they all went together.

They spent their first night at Rockaway Beach, the second at Eureka Springs, Arkansas and went on to Tulsa, Oklahoma where they visited one of Dorcas and Alma's classmates from Walker, Jeannine Stein-cross.

Glen and Dorcas Noble, during a recent vacation. --Submitted photos

When Dorcas and Glen returned from their honeymoon, they lived in Appleton City until June of 1951 when they moved to Nevada and have been there every since.

Glen began work immediately at Sears. Their first child, a girl, was stillborn while they lived in Appleton City, but sons, William Carl (Bill) was born in 1953 and James Mark in 1957. Dorcas didn't work full time when the children were little. "Whatever the kids were involved in, P.T.A, band, or what, I was there for them."

Later, Dorcas retired after being secretary to the administrator of the Nevada Hospital, Jim Redding.

As soon as their son Bill finished high school, he got his nursing degree from the sisters at the School of Nursing at Fort Scott. He is a certified registered nurse anesthetist in Hickory, N. C., and has two children. Mark has a degree in accounting and was the CEO of Moorman Feeds in Quincy, Ill., for 10 years. He owns and operates his own oak furniture store there and has two daughters.

Since the grandchildren have never lived close, Dorcas and Glen filled their home and hearts with girls from Cottey. They worked with a program through their church where they fostered the girls that were interested in coming to the church. They picked them up and took them to church and the church's activities, took them home with them for meals and were just a "home away from home" for the girls. "We've had such good times with the girls and shed a lot of tears when they leave in two years. We still hear from some of them."

After the Sears store closed in Nevada, Glen sold insurance and drove the Nevada R-5 school bus for nine years transporting kids to activities. They continue work in their church and help in their community. They will celebrate 60 years of marriage this year.