By Rev. Tom White, March 14, 2019 — Her name was Noel Carol and, yes, she was born on Christmas Day. That can be seen as a tough break, in a way. The very nature of this holiday can tend to minimize any personal celebratory event. Noel took this in stride. But on this Christmas Day, when she was 11 years old and presents had been opened, her mother told Noel that she hadn’t “opened” all her presents. “Look out the window,” Mom said. Noel went to a window and saw a brand new bicycle—HER bicycle. It was a special birthday.
Spring arrived and Noel went outside and gathered sprigs of willow branches, little branches, the kind that can fit into a little girl’s hand. Taking a small trowel, she dug a hole in the backyard, stuck the stems of willow branches into the hole and then filled in the hole. Her older sisters smiled and gently chided Noel, telling her you just can’t put small branches in a hole and expect it to become a tree. “It’ll grow,” she said, “It’ll grow.”
Later, in the middle of summer, her oldest sister took her younger sisters to enjoy a day on the beach in Sea Isle City. Before leaving, her oldest sister and Noel stopped for something to eat on the boardwalk. A mist was drifting in from the ocean. It only partly covered the sun. Noel said to Edna, “It sure is a strange day, isn’t it?” Then she added, “This is the strangest day of my life.”
An hour later, she was dead. Killed by a drunk driver who lost control of her car coming off a ramp from the Garden State Parkway, driving crazily across the center line and slamming into their car. Two of her sisters were maimed, but Noel’s injuries were fatal.
Noel Carol is buried next to her parents’ graves in South Dennis Cemetery. A small headstone marks her final resting place.
But a much larger memorial stands in the yard of the family residence where she was raised, a beautiful, tall willow tree. Really, there shouldn’t be too much surprise about this. After all, she did say: “It will grow. It will grow.”