Ernestine Noyes

Noyes, Ernestine EAST NASSAU On this past Wednesday, June 25, 2008, Ernestine "Ernie" Noyes, 103, died at the East Nassau home of her grandchildren, Thomas and Nancy Clement. For the past seven years, she had lived here, enjoying the lively day-to-day company of her family, sitting in on book club meetings, walking in the flower-filled yard, and relishing the sumptuous home cooking. She in turn brought warmth and joy to her family and visiting friends with her ready smile, as she often sat ensconced in her chair in the family's kitchen. Ernestine Noyes was born on the first day of spring, March 20, 1905, in Keeseville, N.Y., to Jeremiah Poirier and Celina Desroches. She was the youngest of three children, having an older brother, Raymond and an older stepbrother, Edward. After attending grade school in Keeseville, she moved with her family at age 11 to Schenectady, where she remained for most of her life, until her move to East Nassau in 2001. Ernestine went to work in 1922, at age 17, for General Electric and worked there as a keypunch operator until her marriage to Warner V. Noyes on October 21, 1946. Mr. Noyes predeceased her in 1976. The story the family tells is that, at the time of their marriage, the couple made their home in the apartment where Ernie had been living with her mother. But her dream had always been to own a house. At last, in 1957, with his bag of silver dollars in hand, he bought her a house of her own. This house was her passion, and she was an excellent homemaker. She also made her own clothes, was an enthusiastic gardener, and a skilled cook, sending her husband off to work every day with his favorite, a fried pepper sandwich. She also loved animals and, the family says, coddled her husband's hunting dog, a Weimaraner, until it refused to be left alone in the house. She and her husband had a large circle of friends, and particularly enjoyed a glass of beer and a game of pinochle with them. Although known by some for her "French temper," she readily forgave her granddaughter when, on one visit, the little girl, at the age of three or four, accidentally locked Ernie out of her house -she simply leaned a ladder up to a bedroom window and... "Look, here comes Grandma climbing through the window!," said little Nancy. On another occasion, however, Nancy witnessed a memorable fight; her grandparents hurling walnuts across the kitchen at each other. One of them had broken the bag and spilled them over the floor, and neither would admit it. Ernie also had an uncanny sense, her granddaughter says, of when someone was coming down with a cold, and would say, making up her own word for it, that the person was "poozily." A kind and loyal woman, Ernie is particularly admired for having taken care of her mother until her mother's death at 81, postponing her own married life until she was over 40. Too old by then, she felt, to have children of her own, she was however, a loving mother to her stepdaughter, Margaret, as well as a lifelong good friend to her: "We had lots of fun together," Margaret says, "We were like sisters." She was subsequently a doting grandmother to her only grandchild, Nancy. Ernie is survived by her stepdaughter, Margaret Gregory, grandchildren, Thomas and Nancy Clement, and great-grand-children, Sarah and Michael Clement, all of East Nassau. A gathering in celebration of her life will take place at her home, 7 Tayer Rd. on Friday, June 27, starting at noon. A private service will take place at the house on Saturday, followed by interment in St. John's Lutheran Cemetery on Sand Creek Rd. in Colonie. Donations in Mrs. Noyes' memory may be made to St. Anthony's Guild, P.O. Box 2948, Paterson, NJ 07509-9952. www.hnp.org Arrangements by the Thomas P. Mooney Funeral Home.