Eminent Homemaker
County: Turner
Left a widow in 1932, Mary E. Nold of Parker and her seven children weathered the depression, dust storms and grasshoppers and emerged with an unusual educational record and their land.
Nold started life in Potter County as Mary Elizabeth Nicholson. Her parents came to the county in a covered wagon in 1883. She was educated in the county schools and the Lebanon high school. She taught school for three years before her marriage. In 1909 she was married to George Nold. The Nolds moved to a farm near Parker in 1922 in order that the children might have better educational advantages. Five year later they moved to the farm where Nold and her sons have since lived.
Nold and a son farm their own home quarter and an adjoining 80. In addition she operated seven quarters of Potter County land, managed another three quarters belonging to her father’s estate and operated an additional three quarters.
When her children were all at home Nold canned 700 or 800 quarts yearly. She made all the family clothing until her sons and daughter were through high school. She raised 500 chickens annually, selling the old hens every year and keeping the pullets.
The farmstead is an attractive, prosperous-looking place with all-white buildings, a ten-room modern house and a good windbreak. Most of the trees on the place have been planted by the family. In 1943, Nold planted more trees, including apple trees.
Nold is a community worker as well as a homemaker and farmer. She has been a steward in the Methodist Church for many years and taught nearly every Sunday school class in the church school and worked actively in the WSCS. She is a charter member of the Finaly Extension club. She does Red Cross work and works in the Servicemen’s Mother’s club.
Among her neighbors she is known as a woman who is always ready to help where there is illness, death or trouble.
Nold has traveled to various parts of the United States in recent years. Her hobby is photography and she has a large collection of colored slides showing the places she has visited.