Betty "Popesy" Noble was likely one of Agnes Scott College's biggest cheerleaders, and for good reason: her family started the school. But her interest in promoting the school and its history had nothing to do with personal recognition, and everything to do with what she saw as an amazing story.
"When she realized many people didn't know the history of the school and its founding, she was determined to do everything she could to make sure those things were known," said her daughter, Dr. Betty Scott Noble, of Decatur. "She didn't want to tell the story because it was her family, but because she felt the story needed to be told."
Betty Pope Scott Noble, of Decatur, died Tuesday at Odyssey Hospice from complications of dementia and pneumonia. She was 89. A memorial service, following a private burial, is scheduled for 11 a.m. Friday at Decatur Presbyterian Church. A. S. Turner & Sons Funeral Home and Crematory is in charge.
The great-granddaughter of Agnes Scott founder Col. George Washington Scott, Mrs. Noble was born and reared in Decatur. She graduated from Decatur Girls High and went on to attend Agnes Scott, which is named for her great-great-grandmother. Mrs. Noble graduated from college in 1944 with degrees in Bible and history.
While in school, then-Ms. Scott met J. Phillips Noble, a Columbia seminary student. It was more than just her fetching looks that caught Dr. Noble's attention, he said.
"She also always had a lot of sense," he said, with a light laugh. "It became a challenge to me to show her I was about something, since I was in the seminary," he added, as his laughter increased.
The two married in 1945, and they eventually became parents to three children, two boys and a girl. In 1968 her youngest son died from complications of leukemia, when he was 13. That ordeal, while tremendously painful, was a learning experience for Mrs. Noble, said her son Phillips "Phil" Noble Jr. He said his mother was a, "Decatur Steel Magnolia," long before the term was coined.
"Out of that came a lot of strength," he said. "It helped her create a new perspective of what was important."
As the wife of a Presbyterian minister, Mrs. Noble spent much of her married life working with Dr. Noble as he pastored churches in Alabama and South Carolina. She also maintained a certain amount of independence, her husband said.
"She was never bound by the traditional image of the pastor's wife," the retired minister said. "She wanted to be herself, and she was able to do that."
After the couple returned to Decatur in 1982, Mrs. Noble was able to focus her attention on Agnes Scott College and her family's legacy. She eventually served on the Board of Trustees for 10 years, wrote two family histories and got to see the opening of a museum that houses historical information on the school and its founders. The Betty Pope Scott Noble College Heritage Center at Agnes Scott opened in 2011.
"Her passion was to have people to know the story of her great-grandfather, but she was very modest about the family relationship," Dr. Noble said.
Mrs. Noble is also survived by her sister, Agnes Scott "Mickey" Willoch of Stone Mountain; and two grandchildren.
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