Benson Noice Jr.

Benson found genealogy after he retired and enjoyed meticulously researching his family roots. He came up with several volumes of history including what was called, the Orange Book which is some 200 pages of research on the Noice family tree inclusive of Benson’s autobiography which he self-published in 1991. Some fascinating tidbits from this book are that 4 generations of Noices lived in the tiny hamlet of Walberton England near the southern coast and were shoemakers. Most were married and baptized in the same church, St. Marys. The church still stands today. Benson’s 2nd great grandfather emigrated from Walberton in 1832 and landed in Princeton NJ as a gardener. His first name, Benson, comes from his paternal grandmother’s maiden name Benson which dates back to immigrants from Oxfordshire England named John and Mary Benson who sailed on the The Confidence which arrived in Boston on April 24, 1638 just 18 years after the Mayflower. His second Great Grandfather, Frederick Benson, died in 1851 at the age of 49 in Sonora California as he sought his fortune in the California Gold Rush.

His 2nd maternal Great Grandparents were Watts and Lavinia Cooke.. Watts and Lavinia were born in Northern Ireland and sailed for the United States in 1822. It was recently discovered that their ancestors were Ulster Scots, Presbyterians who were pushed out of Scotland in the 1600’s by King James. Watts and Lavinia’s first-born child, Amelia, was born at sea. Major General Robert Sedgwick was Benson’s paternal 8th great grandfather. He was born in Woburn, England and he emigrated on the ship True Love in 1635. He was one of the founders of Charlestown, Massachusetts and he was called into service by Oliver Cromwell and dispatched to be Governor of the recently conquered Island of Jamaica. Unfortunately, he died soon after arriving in Jamaica although he left decedents back in Massachusetts.

Right after graduating high school from Wentworth Academy in Missouri in 1943, Benson rushed to sign up for the Army. He was rejected due to his poor eyesight and entered the Merchant Marines at age 18 instead. He worked in the mess hall of the Sunoco oil tanker, Sachem sailing out of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. He sailed to Bristol, Liverpool, Aruba, Panama, Cuba, Solomon Islands, New Guinea and the Philippines. In 1944, during WWII, he was aboard the oil tanker Mobilgas off the coast of the Admiralty Islands headed home without running lights (it was wartime) and the empty tanker crashed into another tanker. 50 feet of the bow of the ship sank to the bottom of the ocean. Due to Australia, New Zealand and the US west coast being busy repairing Allied ships, they limped their way all the way across the Pacific, from the Panama Canal to Norfolk VA. That was the end of Benson’s Merchant Marine career. From there he started his college career.

He attended 8 different colleges in his scholastic career. Colby College, University of Minnesota, University of California at Berkeley, University of Pennsylvania, West Chester Teachers College, Springfield College, Lehigh University and University of Delaware. His Master’s Thesis from Penn was about his third great uncle Major General John Sedgwick called “Uncle John Sedgwick Rides to Chancellorsville”. Sedgwick was the highest-ranking Union General who died in the Civil War whose famous last line was “They couldn’t shoot an elephant from that distance”.

In 1947, at the age of 22 Benson volunteered again for the Army (he memorized the eye chart this time). He was halfway through his Bachelor’s degree at Colby College. He was shipped to Korea where the US was providing military oversight. He was stationed as a switchboard operator in Ch’ongju which is between Seoul and Pusan. He was awestruck by the resilience of the locals who were malnourished, lacked heat, sanitation and electricity as the soldiers, including himself, burned chairs for firewood and huddled under blankets as the young Korean kids ran around in shorts, rubber shoes and a single shirt. He toured a mountain side village by giving a local houseboy a pack of matches. There was a newspaper cut out of New York City on the wall, Benson said he lived there, and they laughed at him because they said it was imaginary.

After 7 months in the Army, he was honorably discharged and landed on the West Coast. This brought about a summer semester at Berkeley and he then returned back to the East Coast for the next 38 years. He finished up his Bachelor’s at Colby in Waterville, Maine and moved on to Penn and West Chester to finish his teaching credential and masters. His first teaching job was in 1953 when he was 28 years old at Admiral Farragut Academy in North Jersey. It was at Farragut where he met Newt who was a choral instructor and the owner of a Gloucester Grand Bank Schooner called “The Adventure.” He took a vacation on the ship at the end of 1954. He was able to sail for free as he was willing to be a deck hand. Hurricane Edna came roaring through the Maine coast and Benson, who was 29 at the time, decided he wouldn’t see 30. They survived 100 mile an hour winds, twenty-foot seas and most of the crew wanting to jump ship. Newt told Benson to tie himself to the mast instead of jumping overboard. Luckily after one coast guard cutter gave up trying to save them, a second smaller coast guard boat came along and Newt risked his life and was able to catch the messenger line and save the boat from the rocky shore.

Mary Ann Wenke was born in 1934 in Jackson Heights, Queens NY. She was the second child to Otto Rudolf Wenke and Mary Hammond Wenke. Her brother David Hammond Wenke was born in 1931 in Buffalo NY. At the time my mother was born, my grandfather was working for DuPont in the Empire State Building. DuPont was one of the first tenants when the building opened in 1931 during the depression.

Ann’s father, Daddy Ott, was born in Olean NY in 1898. He was one of eleven children and the second youngest. His father, Paul, and grandfather, Anton, emigrated from what is now Poland but at the time was a Prussian province called Silesia and they spoke German. Otto wrote a family history of his large family which referred to Olean as Wenkeville for all the Wenke’s that lived there. There has been a Wenkeville Reunion that has been held annually for years on Labor Day Weekend and Daddy-Ott was considered the Gros Uncle (Great Uncle) as he was the last survivor of the original 11 siblings. My maternal grandmother, Mary Gertrude Hammond Wenke, or Daddy-Mar which was coined by her first born grandchild, Claire, since she was her “Daddy’s Mar” was born in Buffalo NY. The Hammond name is traced back to Great Great Grandfather Richard Hammond who was born in Tipperary Ireland in 1849 during the Great Famine. He traveled to the United States on the SS Great Eastern with his mother, twin brother, and two other siblings during the Civil War. Richard only had an elementary education and rose from being an apprentice to a journeyman boiler maker and eventually relocated to Buffalo where he designed a plant for the manufacture of steam boilers called the Lake Erie Boiler Works which opened in 1882. Later he was president of the Lake Erie Engineering Works. He was the epitome of the American Dream.

Ann’s family moved to Wilmington in the mid 1930’s. Ann attended elementary school at St. Joe’s and graduated High School from Ursuline Academy and was Valedictorian of her class. With her perfect SAT scores, she entered the University of Delaware and graduated, serendipitously in 1955. Her parents bought her a graduation gift which was a sailing ship cruise on a boat called the Adventure for the third week in June 1955.

Ann drove from Wilmington, Delaware to Rockland, Maine with two other Clinical Laboratory Scientists, Margaret and Alta, just after their graduation from the University of Delaware. They were there for a celebration of their graduation and a week of fun and sailing on the Adventure. They arrived on Sunday, June 19, 1955 (Benson’s 30th birthday). When Ann came on board, she noticed a well-tanned goateed man talking to a married woman and assumed that he was married. Ann was asked out by a guy in a motorboat to attend a dance at a local country club that evening. She agreed and said she would bring along her two college friends. Ann came out on deck to wash her hair. There’s Ann on the waters of Penobscot Bay, a bright future laid before her, a blue sky and my father about to get her attention.

Benson was irked that Ann had accepted a date with the guy in the motorboat. He wrote in his autobiography, “While she prepared for her date by washing her hair over the railing in her bathing suit that afternoon, I gave a gentle push – it was ten feet down. What a splash! Maine water is ve-e-ry cold. Sputtering in fury, she climbed the ladder and stomped to Captain Newt to ask how he could tolerate a crew member pushing a passenger overboard. With a quizzical smile, Newt opined as how any young man who did that must be interested. “What right’s a married man got to push single girls overboard?” she exploded. Pointing out that I wasn’t wed, he guessed that I had wanted to get her attention. I did.” Ann Wenke’s dive into Penobscot Bay at Benson’s hand is the genesis of a long love affair of over 65 years. Benson was 30 and Ann was about to turn 21.

Ann and Benson married just 6 months after meeting on the Adventure on New Year’s Eve (Ann claims that she wanted to make sure they got a tax deduction) at St. Joseph’s on the Brandywine. They moved to North Jersey where David Cooke Noice was born the next year. Soon the long hours of working at a private school and my mother being so far from her parents in Wilmington; they moved to Delaware. This is when Benson started teaching 8th grade history at Mount Pleasant Junior High School. Richard Sedgwick Noice, was born in 1958 and Catharine Mary Noice, followed in 1961.We first lived in Graylyn Crest and then in 1963, moved to the new subdivision of Brandywood at 10 Majestic Court which was backed up to park land and, as it turns out, had a terrific sledding hill in the back yard.

Benson loved teaching and he was an exceptional teacher. He claimed that he could remember every student’s name from upwards of 5 classes (about 120 names) after the first day of school by using Mnemonics. He was a tireless educator and our dining room table frequently was covered in student projects. Benson could be seen every evening grading papers and correcting grammar. Quotes from students from his passing in 2019:

“For many of us Mr. Noice was an amazing social studies teacher at Concord High School. For those of us in the class of 1989 we were the last class to have the benefit of Mr. Noice’s experience, love of history, and humor, as he retired at the of our freshman year. He inspired my already present love of history thanks to his project on family history he spurred what had been a nearly thirty-year love/hate project to track down and document my family history through various lines. Mr. Noice was an amazing teacher but more importantly he was an amazing human being and he taught us so much.”

“I had Mr. Noice for 8th grade American History. One amazing thing that I still remember is his teaching the development of the bullet at the time of the Civil War and how the bullet, with its spiral action, was way more accurate than the musket balls used in the American Revolution. He was one of the great ones.”

“He was such a nice man who put his whole heart into his teaching. My favorite memory of him is marching around the room with a long pointer held upwards as if it was a rifle. He was demonstrating how the British were marching back to Boston from Lexington and Concord. As he talked about how more and more of the Colonial Militia fired upon them from behind rocks and trees, he marched around the room faster and faster until breaking into a full run. To this day, any time I hear or read about Lexington and Concord, I think of Mr. Noice.”

Several prior students either studied history or went on to be teachers thanks to Benson’s impact. He also hosted a chess club and according to one student taught some dance moves at a study hall.

Ann was a medical technologist at the Delaware Hospital for many years and eventually became the lab supervisor. Odds are that if you had your tests done at the Delaware Hospital in the 1970’s, Ann had a hand in doing the test. At one point she became exposed to Hepatitis and was laid up in bed for several weeks. This was way out of character for Ann as she was the backbone of the house. Whether it was preparing elegant holiday meals, running the household, paying the bills or making appointments, Ann was making it happen. She did not suffer fools. If there was a mistake on a bill or she was given incorrect information, she would track it down and take care of it. Benson was always so proud of how she was not to be messed it.

The Noice family lived in that house at 10 Majestic Court in Brandywood for several decades. They lived on a cul de sac in a newly built neighborhood with over 20 school aged children on Majestic Court and neighboring streets. The court was ground zero for countless touch football, baseball, kick the can and kickball games. The woods behind the house were either explored or several forts were built. Daddy Ott was an avid gardener and he maintained an enormous rock garden in the backyard; Longwood Gardens was an inspiration. All the Noice kids attended Concord High School and swam for the swim team. Ann never failed to show up for a swim meet and her voice could be heard cheering them on. They had weekly family councils where each of the kids had a vote. So decisions like allowance and punishments were democratic. Dinner time was a place for political and philosophical debate with Benson espousing the historical view on various issues like Vietnam and Watergate. Benson frequently said that “Life’s not fair” and “Toughen you up for life”. In retrospect, he knew of what he espoused.

Benson’s siblings, their children and his mother had all relocated to Winter Park, Florida. His mother, Grandbee would fly them down each Easter to join the Noice family. They either went to the beach or experienced the newly built Disney World. In Wilmington, Ann and Benson held bridge parties at home frequently with other teachers from school. There were many late nights with past students or counselors from camp. Two frequent visitors were Wally Wheeler and Chip MacIntosh who would visit and hold late night philosophical talks with Benson. He drank coffee all day long (yes even cold) and always wore a jacket for the school he was teaching at, Green for Mt. Pleasant, Maroon for Concord and later a Duke jacket for his granddaughter’s alma mater. If Benson was anything, he was consistent.

Since Benson was a teacher, he had summers off. Ann was always maximizing time and resources, Benson was a counselor at several camps including Camp Rodney, Camp Tockwogh and Camp DeWitt. The whole family went to camp and Ann would rent out our house for the summer. We spent close to ten years traveling to Wolfeboro, New Hampshire every summer where my father was the waterfront director for the camp. In addition to Dave and Rick being campers and counselors, several of the Florida cousins also went to Camp DeWitt. Benson taught many campers how to sail a boat on beautiful, Lake Winnipesauke while Ann and Cathy would lounge on the beach or go shopping in Manchester. Those were idyllic days. Sometimes at the end of camp, the whole family would go sailing on the lake with Benson at the helm.

In the summer of 1969, Ann and Benson bought a 21-foot travel trailer and they headed out on their first family trip cross country ostensibly to find evidence of the Kensington Stone in the countryside of Minnesota. This became a slide show for Benson’s eighth grade students where they had to determine the validity of the Kensington Stone and whether the Vikings were in the United States well before any other Europeans. The following summer they embarked as a family on a 12,000 miles cross country trip. The kids vividly remember crossing the searing 112-degree heat of Kansas in their non-air-conditioned Ford station wagon. Highlights of the trip were Salt Lake City, Yosemite, the Olympic Peninsula, Mount Rainier, and Banff. Ann was famous for having Benson pay the various tolls with pennies. They were not popular with toll booth operators. Benson drove the entire way except for about 8 miles where Ann got behind the wheel only to have a truck roar by, cause them to fishtail and abruptly the traffic was stopped ahead. After they all regained our composure, Benson got behind the wheel again. The kids remember at one point in the Sierra Nevada’s that both sides of the road seemed to disappear. Benson frequently would pull off the road to admire the view. He really had wanderlust but above all else the patience and fortitude to drive practically the entire 12,000 miles.

Benson started writing in the late 70’s in order to alleviate insomnia. His futuristic science fiction novel was entitled, Challenge and Response and was based on the themes of Arnold Toynbee’s 12 volumes called A Study in History. He wrote and edited that novel and several volumes for the next 40 years. He also was a fan of playing a game called Civilization which he turned his grandchildren onto as well.

As the kids left home for college, Ann and Benson became empty nesters while remaining at 10 Majestic Court until 1989. Benson and Ann retired and sold their home. Dave had married his college sweetheart, Judy Lamb, and moved to Palo Alto CA. Rick had joined the Navy and Cathy had married Orlando Robles and also relocated to Northern California. When Dave and Judy welcomed twins Katie Anna and Megan Christina, it was time for Benson and Ann to become grandparents. The call of the West coast was too strong.

They rented an apartment in Sunnyvale California but eventually settled in Windsor CA in the Sonoma wine country. Besides visiting Dave, Judy, Katie, and Megan doting on their grandchildren in Palo Alto, Benson and Ann started to travel the world. They frequently traveled with Ann’s brother and sister-in-law, Dave and Karen Wenke. The four of them were great travel partners as they went to Switzerland, Germany, England, China, New Zealand, Australia, Alaska, Hawaii and Hong Kong. They were really impressed with the Great Wall of China and the Terra Cotta Warriors in Xi’an. The highlight of their travels was a tour of Russia, where they both would vividly recall floating down the Volga River as an orchestra played Dr. Zhivago’s, Lara’s Theme as they passed by the autumnal leaves.

Cathy and Orlando, and their two-year-old daughter Natalie Mary moved to the same neighborhood as Benson and Ann in 1995 when she was pregnant with her second child, Benson Orlando. When Cathy divorced just two years later, Benson and Ann were invaluable in maintaining some normalcy as the kids shuttled back and forth. Spending time at the pool, teaching them to ride bikes, and taking them on endless rides around the vineyard covered hills became the past time.

When Cathy, her second husband, Kevin, Natalie and Benson moved to North Carolina, Benson twisted Ann’s arm into relocating back to the East Coast to be near their youngest grandchildren in 2004. They went to endless soccer games, wrestling matches, football games, concerts and marching band competitions. There was also their last Wenkeville reunion to be enjoyed in Olean, NY where Ann was able to see her brother. Dave, and sister-in-law, Karen, and hundreds of other Wenke cousins.

As Cathy’s children moved on to college and Benson and Ann’s health started to decline, they decided to move to Albuquerque NM where Rick was a nurse at UNM Hospital. Rick found them a senior living arrangement in Rio Rancho, NM where Ann returned to playing bridge and Dad joined a few clubs. They enjoyed socializing at meals with the other residents. All the kids joined Benson on his 94th birthday which featured a cake that looked like a book titled “Benson Noice Junior the Great.” This was the title of a book that grandson Benson wrote at the age of 11 for a school project. We read passages of the book and reflected on his life. Benson was always very stoic. He had lived such a rich full life and was just happy to be with his children and wife. In all of his travels and death-defying experiences, he claimed that seeing the birth of his grandchildren was the highlight of his life. He also claimed the toughest decision was to get married, since he was a child of divorce. Rick deftly spearheaded our father’s care and coordinated hospice care in the last year of his life. Just 4 weeks later after his 94th birthday he succumbed to Congestive Heart Failure.

Rick had recently retired from nursing when Benson passed away and he and his partner Sarina decided to relocate to Sequim Washington.Ann decided to relocate to the Olympic Peninsula as well. Rick was invaluable taking care of all the details of the move and helping her get situated in Sequim. It was the first time in her life that she was living alone. She lived at The Lodge which was a new hub of social activity. She was playing upwards of 3 bridge games a week and enjoyed the weather and beauty of the Pacific Northwest. She took exercise classes, continued to attend Catholic services and enjoyed the many new friends that she met there.

The entire family came to celebrate her 90th birthday in June of 2024. She finally met her great grandson Archie, son of Rachel and Katie and spent time with great granddaughters, Judith and Eloise, daughters of Megan and Will. Ann was very vocal in her political beliefs and asked everyone to vote for her candidate in the pending election. She passed away just 4 months later from metastatic cancer. Cathy, Rick, Dave, Natalie and her husband Kevin, all came to be by her side as she lay bed bound in her last few weeks of life. She asked that a framed painting of St. Joe’s Church be moved so that she could see it in her bedroom. Benson’s ashes were by her side and she repeatedly called out for her mother who had passed away in 1962. Rick’s medical knowledge and understanding of hospice care were invaluable and made Ann’s transition much more comfortable.

In going through her things after her death, they found the many years of Anniversary and Mother's Day poems Benson had written for Ann:

To the Girl That Came to Me

There was a girl named Ann who came to Penobscot Bay. Once beautiful long ago sunshine mid June day. As lean, clean and green as she could possibly be, which make her quite attractive to the likes of me. With my push from behind she went into the harbor cold, which certainly got her attention for being so bold; later, I sang guitar sea shanties to make things right, which she then decided to accept under moonlight. For half a century we’ve shared our lives for good, raising our 3 children as well we ever could; now we follow 4 grandchildren as best we can. Thanks of my now white haired girl, my Ann.

A brash sailor from Penobscot Bay. Big Ben

Mother’s Day for my Annie

The nicest thing that’s ever happened to me, was meeting my Annie on a sheltered sea; Who’s married me for half a century and more, and given the love I’d never known before; She’s blessed me with wondrous children three, a blessing adding to our growing family tree” our long journey must surely end one day, but loving memories shall never be cast away. Your lucky husband - Sailor Ben

We have to imagine that they are together sailing on a boat with Benson at the helm and Ann nestled safely by his side off to the next exciting destination.