NOEL GERTRUDE CANARSKY, 91 years, of Rosalie, Nebraska, passed away Tuesday, March 15, 2011, at Oakland Mercy Hospital in Oakland, NE.

Noël Gertrude (Brooks) Canarsky was born Christmas Day, December 25, 1919, at her parents’ home at 133 Shakespeare Street in Mackay, Queensland, Australia. The daughter of Charles Edward Brooks and Ann Elizabeth (Wilson) Brooks, Noël was the third of four siblings including older brother, Harry, older sister, Nancy, and her younger brother, Ted.

Noël had a great affection for animals and a love of flowers and nature. As a young child the neighbors often commented on the gentle way with which she would interact and play with her own pets and other people’s animals she would meet. Noël would dress up her cat in doll clothes, place it in a pram and stroll with it around the neighborhood, much to the neighbors' astonishment (and amusement). A favorite remembrance told by her mother over the years at family gatherings involved Noël and some other children her age being lead through a friend’s flower garden with her mother and the woman leading the way…somewhere during the tour the woman turned to look behind her and gently said, “No, no little girl, don’t pick the flowers.” Well, her mother said, she didn’t even have to look behind her to know who the little girl was. Noël had fond memories and stories to tell of her father and mother, her siblings and their marriage partners, aunts and uncles, nieces, nephews and many cousins. They were a very close knit family that maintained their ties through the miles that separated them.

It always brought a smile to Noël’s face remembering how her younger brother Ted use to like to play Tarzan on a trellis attached to their veranda at home. Ted had a fascination with anything mechanical including motorcycles and he went on to become a top rated engine mechanic…working later mainly on car engines. Noël would also talk about her brother Harry and what a good athlete he was at bicycling races whether cross country or closed circular track…and how he always had a reserve of energy he could draw on at the last moment to win a race. Harry latter went on to study law and became a judge at Court Of Petty Sessions. Before marrying, Noël’s sister, Nancy, worked as a seamstress and Noël was always a little amazed at the ease and quickness with which Nancy could put together a piece of clothing, while barely using a pattern to rely on at all.

Noël and her family were avid readers and made good use of their town’s public library. Generally, each week Noel and her father would ride by bicycle down to the library to take back the books they had already read and would check out more for the next week. Noël grew up in a different time and place than today’s world and in a town that, although large enough to have a library, movie theater, fair showground, beach for recreation, a hospital, numerous stores, several schools, etc. and a seacoast harbor with a breakwater, docks and wharfs; was also small enough that most people were familiar with each other.

Noël was proud of her father and credited her mother for the values she passed on to her children. Her father was a well known carpenter and the family grew up in the home that he had built and which still stands today. While acting for a time as administrator at the hospital in the town, he was also known amongst bicyclers on the racing circuit as someone who could build bikes and wheels for bikes and also someone everyone trusted as a race starter to give a fair start to the cycle races. Noël’s hometown Mackay was built on fairly flat land and at the time, a comparatively high percentage of the population used bicycles to get around within the city. Noël’s father built an adult bike for his daughter when she was a young woman. Noël’s own mother used a bicycle to get around, visit neighbors, and go shopping until a fall in her latter years which resulted in her entering a nursing home.

After graduation from school, Noël obtained a job as a salesclerk at Burns LTD – a large well known department store in Mackay at the time. She worked over a period of years in several different departments, but found the most enjoyment in working in the fabric department selling materials. Noël displayed a knack for putting fabrics together with the right trims and accessories.

With the advent of WWII Noël did quite a bit of volunteer work…some, for a while, at the hospital where one of the well-seasoned matrons thought she would make an excellent nurse and tried to get Noël interested in studying to become one…unfortunately, the different medical chemicals in use in certain areas of the hospital - especially ether – made Noël extremely ill…so that put an end to that.

As the war progressed, Mackay became a haven for many displaced native refugees from islands surrounding Australia. Noël’s Presbyterian Church had sponsored some Javanese refugees and she befriended a number of them and learned to speak some of their language.

During WWII Mackay’s harbor was used by the Australians, Americans and others as a naval base. Mackay also became a town used for R&R by different branches of the service including the U.S. Army-Air Force. The local churches would serve refreshments to the weary troops and during one such occasion, Noël met her future husband, Walter. The young serviceman wrote home that he had met a "swell" girl. They began a correspondence that continued during the war and even after his return to the USA in May 1945 where he was discharged in San Francisco. With the goal of earning enough money to return to Noël in Australia once again, Walter worked at a GoodYear tire plant in Topeka, Kansas and then with the railroad between San Francisco, California and Ogden, Utah. Walter asked his mother to find a nice engagement ring and sent it by mail to the girl of his choice. In January 1946, he had enough saved and returned to Australia, and on February 19, 1946, Walter & Noël were married at St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church in Mackay, Queensland.

Noël and Walter stayed in Australia for about a year, but in 1947 Walter & Noël made the move to America. They spent a short time in San Francisco, where Walter studied to obtain his American Radio Operator’s License. Walter & Noël did some sightseeing while there - Chinatown, Fisherman’s Wharf, Golden Gate Park, etc. Americans who met Noël were continually surprised by her depth of knowledge about America…its people…its places.

After obtaining his license, Walter & Noël moved to North Platte, Nebraska where Walter found employment as a Radio Engineer at Radio Station KODY - North Platte. Housing was still hard to come by and the young couple rented a basement apartment from an older married couple.

Noël had begun to suffer from bouts of home sickness which she had tried to overcome by keeping busy at their apartment, improving her cooking skills, learning to make angle food cakes… and even by occasionally helping Walter run audio cables for remote broadcasts for things like Sunday church services. Their lady landlord realized what was happening and suggested Noël try to get a job a local department store…which usually hired extra people during the Holiday season around Christmas time…as it was that time of the year. So Noël applied for and was accepted for a job at the store. It took her a little while to get used to the new system of doing things and to using a cash register for the first time. Although a little nervous about it all, Noël soon became one of their most able and knowledgeable sales clerks and very adept at running a cash register.

The couple was still looking for a home of their own when Walter’s father, a farmer, decided to retire. He wished to leave each of his sons a farm, and with the lack of housing in North Platte, Walter and Noël decided to move to the rural Rosalie area and take up farming. Noël, who had done very little, cooking before her marriage, had become quite proficient at it by this time and was able to prepare large meals for the threshing crews that would come through in the days before this method of farming and way of life was replaced by more modern combines and balers.

Noël had a busy full life on the farm. When the children started school Walter decided that he would probably be able to get more farm work accomplished during the day if Noël could learn to drive the car. Walter was a patient teacher and Noël, although a little nervous about it all, a good student and learner. Noël was soon tooling around in the family car. Driving the children to school, or church, or doctor’s appointments, or swimming lessons, or 4H club meetings, taking lunch out to the field, picking up machinery parts from various implement dealers, weight ticket sheets from grain elevators, picking up extra sacks of fertilizer, shopping for groceries, taking washing to the laundromat, or driving to monthly meetings of the Sunshine Club...all followed learning to drive.

At home Noël kept busy cooking or cleaning; she was particular about her house and liked everything neat and tidy. Beds were always made, floors washed and waxed every week, clothes darned and ironed, and enumerable dishes washed. She had her own vegetable garden and each year enjoyed growing tomatoes, beans, sweet corn, carrots, beets, onions, scallions, lettuce, radishes, pickles, dill, etc. Coming from frugal Scots blood, Noel learned how to can and over the years put up many jars of strawberries, tomatoes, society chips, bread and butter pickles, dill pickles, chow chow, corn, beans, etc.

Both Noël and Walter read to their children and encouraged reading from the time they were small…both were good at choosing interesting books and reading them, but it was probably Noël who excelled at using her imagination to bring stories and characters to life and leave her listeners yearning for more…even though it was time for bed. One of her biggest loves and a hobby that filled many hours of the day was creating new flower beds and growing flowers of all kinds. There were practically none when she arrived on the farm. Over time, the bare or weedy ground surrounding the house was gradually turned into green lawns and colorful flower beds. Over the years Noël visited and made friends with many other flower people like herself, who almost invariably, would offer her some new or different type of flower to add to her garden. Noël had the ability to make almost anything take root, grow, and bloom. Once a year Walter would bring in a manure spreader load full of rocks gathered up off the field and Noël would pick out ones to act as borders for her ever expanding flower beds.

More of an economic necessity than a hobby was Noël's sewing skills. Although she never considered herself in the same league as a seamstress as her sister, Nancy, Noël was meticulous and her sewing excellent. Over the years she enjoyed making wonderful clothing of all kinds on her White Sewing Machine for her children - especially her daughter, Linda, herself, and even for some of the children’s stuffed toy animals. She liked to knit and crochet and produced lovely sweaters and items to brighten the house.

Careful money management allowed the family to take a few weeks vacation annually and Noël enjoyed finding articles on places they might venture to. Colorado became a favorite vacation destination spot with Walter's sister's (Clara), home acting as their base in Denver. Walter and Noël enjoyed WIT 900 Club travel log programs in Sioux City. They also watched travel programs on TV and maintained an interest in the world and world events.

Over the years, Noël and Walter were only able to return to Australia once for a three-month stay taking their two young children with them. For 28 years there was a steady correspondence by mail from Noël's Mother keeping the communications lines going. When Noël's mother passed away at the age of 84, Noël's sister, Nancy, took up the weekly letter writing and later once a month talks on the phone until shortly before her 95th birthday when she too passed away. The monthly calls from home were fewer but when they came it was as if time had stood still and they could pick up a conversation as though having seen each other just the prior day. After Nancy’s death, her daughter, Joanna, continued to phone with news from home. Noël's niece, Noela, was able to spend several weeks with the family in the 60s and Noël's daughter, Linda, has spent time in Australia visiting various relatives. Noël and Walter got to visit their daughter, Linda, and her son, Canaan, only once after she moved to California but, every Sunday Linda would call from California and they would talk for several hours about everything.

Noël was an exceptional person who strived to make conditions better in life. It showed every day in everything she did. She was a wonderful cook and flower arranger. Every Christmas, Easter, Memorial Day, Thanksgiving, birthday or graduation was made memorable by her presence and her efforts. She could be humorous as well as serious…often repeating little English nonsense rhymes or poetry from her childhood to amuse her children or defuse tension. She would have preferred to avoid arguments. Still, she would not keep quiet when she felt a thing was wrong.

Noël was a loving and devoted spouse and a constant at her husband's side up until the time of his passing. She will be greatly missed by her family.

Survivors include her son, Dale W. Canarsky of Rosalie, NE; her daughte,r Linda A. Dozier of Moorpark, CA; her grandson, Canaan A. Dozier of Moorpark, CA.

Noel’s Australian siblings and their families are listed below. Italics denote the person is no longer living.

(Henry “Harry” Thomas Brooks & Noreen Mary Jones)
Her nephew Ian Henry Brooks and his wife Trudy Anne Hayter and their children
Her niece Ann Maree Brooks and her husband Matthew Mackerras and their children
Her nephew Kenneth Charles Brooks and his wife Sally Margaret Hague and their children

(Nancy Ella Brooks & Francis W. McCarthy)
Her niece Noela McCarthy and her husband Douglas Marshall and their children
Her niece Margot Elizabeth McCarthy and her son and grandchildren
Her niece Joanna McCarthy

Charles “Ted” Edward Brooks & Betty Moore)
Her nephew Glen Charles Brooks and his wife Cheryl Sturdy and their children
Her nephew Allen Raymond Brooks and his wife Marian Margaret Sedi and their children

She was preceded in death by her father and mother; her beloved husband, Walter; her brothers,Henry “Harry” Thomas Brooks and Charles “Ted” Edward Brooks; her sister, Nancy Ella (Brooks) McCarthy and her husband, Francis W. McCarthy; her nephew, Kenneth Charles Brooks.

MEMORIAL SERVICE: Saturday, April 9, 2011, 10:30 a.m. at the First Presbyterian Church in Lyons, Nebraska.

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MEMORIALS: To the Family

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