As Ben Ferrel Platte County Museum celebrates 140 years on Saturday, June 24, the event will include the special recognition of four of the area’s centenarians, including, Martha Brenner Noland, who has worked at the museum as a volunteer for decades.
“I’m not a regular volunteer but at Christmas or when they have special things going on, I usually go,” Noland said. “I like to keep my foot in the door.”
As a volunteer, teacher, world traveller and history buff, Noland has had many memorable experiences in her life. She graduated from North Kansas City High School and after graduating from Central Missouri State University after only three years, she went full circle and began teaching physical education at her Alma Mater, North Kansas City High School, where she found herself teaching seniors who had been freshmen three years earlier when she was a senior in the same school.
After teaching for two years, she got married and moved with her husband, Joseph, E. (Bob) Noland, a Parkville veteran of World War II, to San Juan, Puerto Rico for a year, where her husband served as U.S. Customs Inspector.
When they returned to Parkville, and after her two daughters were born, Noland went back to teaching. She taught fourth grade at Graden and then moved on to teach at the newly built Chinn Elementary School. During this time she earned a master’s degree from the University of Missouri at Kansas City.
“I enjoyed every day of teaching, it was so much easier back then and it was very structured and you knew each day what you and the children were going to do,” Noland said.
After her husband’s passing in 1977, and after teaching 20 years at Chinn, she decided to retire so she could focus on her many other interests.
It was at this time she began volunteering at the Ben Ferrel Museum. She played golf and tennis, studied history, and travelled the world. She also spent 25 years at the Nelson-Atkins Museum and the Folly Theatre, and 20 years at the Quality Hill Playhouse and Kansas City Symphony.
She was also active in the Daughters of Union Veterans, Daughters of the American Revolution, Daughters of the War of 1812 and other organizations.
Her family’s history has been one of her favorite interests. The Ben Ferrel Museum has a lot of local history artifacts that brings in many people who want to learn more about the history of their community, and sometimes, their own personal history. Noland has learned that her Brenner family were farmers for three generations in Platte County and came in 1843 from Germany because of war in Germany bringing on unsettled times in their home country.
“They had friends who were in the U.S. and who they were corresponding with, and I guess they believed there were lots of opportunities here.”
Noland found out that she is the great-granddaughter of a Union Civil War soldier.
“This is quite important to me,” Noland said. “He enlisted when he was 16 years old and survived the war. He married my grandmother when she was 16 years old and they lived in Saline County, Mo. and traveled the Santa Fe Trail to southern Oklahoma. They came back with a horse and wagon to Platte County and he bought 150 acres just off I-29 near Northwood Road. I live within three miles of where they lived.”
Her great-grandfather served in the Civil War for eight days and was injured. Noland hasn’t been able to find out what type of injury he sustained, but he was dismissed on Christmas from the military and was given $8.75 by the Union Army. He was later awarded a Pioneer Certificate.
On her mother’s side of the family, Noland’s great-great-great grandfather fought in the War of 1812 and was awarded 150 acres in Saline County, Mo.
Her most enjoyable times volunteering at the Ben Ferrel Museum included giving tours and telling people the history of this local landmark.
“It was always really heartwarming to see young people come in and be interested although not many came in, it was mostly middle-aged or older, and thousands came in because there was the research library in the basement of the museum and a lot of people came through the museum to go to the basement to work,” Noland said. “The research library has moved to the high school.”
The opportunity to travel the world has been one of Noland’s favorite activities in her 100 years. Her favorite destination was India, a trip she took when she was a volunteer at the Nelson-Atkins Museum. While in India, she met then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, which is one of the highlights of her travels.
For Noland, another memorable adventure was when she faced a decision on whether to take a bus or a plane to the base camp of Mount Everest in Nepal.
“I was so frightened coming in to Nepal that I thought if I get out of this plane, I don’t know whether I can ever do it again,” Noland said. “We were flying between mountains and the plane was going this way and that and I thought I was going to die. I was so scared I just couldn’t get on another plane and so I took a bus up. It was a small bus, like maybe eight people and they took us to the first campsite on Mount Everest and that was as far as I got.”
Noland’s family has been an important component of Platte County for many reasons. Many kids had to walk a great distance to get to school in the early 1900s. Noland’s sisters walked about a mile and a half to get to the Lakeside School. Her parents decided to donate some of their land for the Brenner Ridge School to be built so kids would have a shorter and easier walk to school.
She has seen many changes in Platte County over the last 100 years and she remains a proud member of the Platte County community who is looking forward to celebrating Ben Ferrel Museum’s 140 years next weekend.