On the 5th January 2012, Noel Wallace Jones passed away at his home. He was buried at the Grenfell Lawn Cemetery on 10th January 2012. He is survived by his wife, Carol of 48 yrs and 2 children, Gaye and Terry, his grand children, Jeremy, Melissa, Matthew & Alexander and great grandchild Lachlan.
The family would like to thank Dr Ismael, Home Care, Motel Staff, Father Howard Knowles, Church of England Ladies, A R Penrose & Son, and all those who sent flowers and cards with your thoughts and prayers. We are forever grateful to have had the love and support of you all.
The following Eulogy was as written by Noel’s eldest grandson.
Good morning everyone, my name is Jeremy and I am Noel’s eldest grandson.
Noel, pa, was born on the 5th of December 1940, the eighth child of Percy and Margaret Jones of Warraderry. At an early age the family moved to Grafton Street where Percy started Jones’ Transport. Pa attended school at the Rose Street location, and over the years he has told many stories of his school boy shenanigans, shooting, fishing, skylarking and the like, as boys do.
In the late 50’s pa met nan, Carolyn Williams after he fell off a sheep float and nan nursed him back to health at the hospital. They were engaged by 1961 and married in Young in April of 1963. The best man was the Gangsta and the maid of honour was nan’s sister Aunty Robin.
In June of 1965 my mum Gaye was born. At the time pa, was working at Bolton Bros. Sawmill and was under instruction from Ken to call when the baby was born, so pa did, at 2 am. Five years later in April of 1970 Terry was born, however Terry arrived at a reasonable hour so there was no midnight phonecall to wake Ken.
Pa has 4 grandchildren and one great grand child. I wasn’t as quick off the mark to give great grand children as my sister, Melissa who can fondly remember massaging pa’s bald spot as a child, trying to make his hair grow back. She can also remember looking for the new growth as her massaging treatment progressed.
My brother Matthew says that his best memory of pa is driving down the main street with him in the Henry Lawson festival in pa’s Austin. There is also a great photo that Uncle Terry took of Matthew when he was a toddler with Matt wearing pa’s akubra. He was put on the plank and given the trowel to lay some bricks in the archway at the house in Alexandra Street.
Alexander and Lachlan are a bit too young to understand that pa has gone. They do have some good photographs with him and will be told stories as they grow up.
As a kid I spent a lot of time helping pa, whether it be loading wood, borrowing sand from the creek out the Forbes Road or lugging bricks when he built the flats.
Uncle Terry was telling me yesterday of a fishing trip he and pa went on in Kiama. Pa bought a few stubbies, a coke for Terry and they walked down to the wharf and bought a lobster and some fish. Every fishing trip was successful.
Mum was pa’s navigator on family holidays as they caravanned around the country side. Together they could set up camp, annexe and all in under 20 minutes. Mum also recalls pa picking her up from a school dance and doing ‘the twist’ much to her embarrassment.
Nan will remember the romantic side of pa. On one of their last holidays together before they bought the motel, they spent 10 nights on the Murray Princess in the honeymoon suite. Nan can remember the dress-up party on the trip. Pa was dressed as Casey Jones and nan was Raggedy Anne.
Pa was well known for his jokes and will be sadly missed in the local hotels as a worthy opponent in any debate. Pa was known as the ‘carpet snake’ at the bowling club; everyone was known as an animal there. Pa had a knack for answering the telephone in a diplomatic manner. Whilst working in the morgue he was known to have answered the phone with ‘city morge, you kill’em we chill’em. There are dozens of other examples unmentionable in a church.
Pa had an extensive work career spaning about 55 years. After he left school he worked for his father, then for Boltons Sawmill, and then onto the hospital. After hours and weekends he worked for Bob Mcinnes as a milkman and Steppa Fanning at the Esso service station.
Pa also carted a lot of wood and mowed thousands of lawns, aswell as laying carpet and vinyl at the Lithgow, Bathurst, Blayney and Cowra hospitals as part of the western region team. Pa also built the fishpond at the Grenfell hospital which was sadly demolished to make way for the new MPS building. Somehow amongst all the paid work and family life he found time to build a house and four flats in Alexandra Street before retiring to the Grenfell Motel. He was also a member of the fire brigade, the lions club and also raffled thousands of chooks to raise money for the purchase of a new hospital bus.
My grand father was a very dignified man and would never give up a stir or argument.If it was said to be not possible pa would do it anyway. Although pa was very sick in the end he was too proud to accept help from anyone, including me. Pa followed the Rabbitohs with passion and wasn’t shy to rub in a win. He also loved John Wayne movies, but Stripes was his favourite.
Although pa’s innings were a bit short, he did pack a lot of action into them and will be sadly missed by all who knew him. We have plenty of fond memories and great stories. Melissa, Matt and I sat up to all hours this morning remembering pa. I’m glad we did.
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