On Mother’s Day, the Noble Maritime Collection honors John A. Noble’s mother, Amelia “Gloria” Peische Noble, both a bohemian artist and muse, and a glamorous advocate for healthy living, who was in many ways ahead of her time. In one of her scrapbooks in the museum’s archive, we recently rediscovered an article published by the Tulsa World Sunday Magazine sometime in mid 1936; Gloria did not include the date, as dating things, particularly concerning herself, was against her personal philosophies. The article, by an unknown journalist and transcribed below, captures Gloria at a transitional moment in her life, two years after the death of her husband, American Romantic painter John “Wichita Bill” Noble (1874-1934), father of the museum’s namesake.

For her, widowhood heralded a personal era of liberation and zest for life. She changed her name to Gloria, and altered her appearance to match her new persona by undergoing rhinoplasty and dying her hair platinum blonde. The portrait by Marion Jochimsen that illustrates this article shows the subject at not quite full “Gloria.” Notice that for her scrapbook, she erased the newsprint from the tip of her nose, which at that point was probably still natural. Her change in hair color is discussed in this article, but Gloria redacted a line with black ink. Perhaps to her she was always blonde, always Gloria, always glorious. She also truly believed in agelessness. She was so relentless in redacting dates in her personal papers that the museum is unsure of the exact year of her birth.

Fascinatingly, and somewhat ironically, the article is both extremely dated and forward thinking; parts are even a bit problematic. Gloria was clearly dedicated to her views, as well intentioned as they were, and at times resorted to propaganda in advocating them. Her vegetarian recipes detailed throughout the article seem to be in line with what a dietician might recommend nearly a century later—but it is also incredulous that carrot and orange juices kept Jean Harlow’s hair, and Gloria’s, blonde. Through modern eyes, especially in the midst of a pandemic, she seems to cross a line by predicting that in the future it will be a “disgrace” to become ill, believing that physical health is entirely connected to personal choices in diet and one’s outlook on life.

Marion Jochimsen (1894-1996) painted Gloria Noble more than once and this watercolor, done in 1945, is in the museum’s collection.

Indeed Gloria lived a relatively long life for her generation, and her youthful appearance belied her years when she died in 1959. She did not live to experience the women’s liberation movement of the next two decades, and one wonders what she would have thought of the change it brought about. It is notable and frustrating that the author of this article did not once refer to her as either Amelia or Gloria, rather only as “Mrs. John Noble.” Both she and the journalist speak reverently of the late artist, but there are hints at the troubling relationship Gloria had with him. Thinly veiled as the burden of being a muse is the story of a woman who was physically and emotionally drained by her marriage. “She needed to be calm and fresh both mentally and physically in order to be of more help to one who soared to inspirational heights and sank to maddening depths of loneliness.” Wichita Bill was not easy to live with, at best, but one gets the sense that Gloria also enjoyed being an artist’s wife, and indeed after his death she created a cottage industry out of the experience by becoming a professional speaker about his work.

And yet still, Gloria emerges as more of a survivor than a widow in mourning, as the article tellingly notes that on her mirror at home was a slip of paper that read, “Be bigger than anything that happens to you.” Its placement implies that Gloria needed that daily reminder, and found strength in her vulnerabilities. The mantra is as timeless as Gloria is.

— Ciro Galeno, Jr., Executive Director

This article was originally published in Tulsa World Sunday Magazine in 1936. The portrait of Gloria Noble was reproduced from the original watercolor by Marion Jochimsen (1894-1996) in the 1930s. — This article was originally published in *Tulsa World Sunday Magazine* in 1936. The portrait of Gloria Noble was reproduced from the original watercolor by Marion Jochimsen (1894-1996) in the 1930s.

Keeping Up With Artist Husband Warded Off Age

Mrs. John Noble’s Life of Service Taught Her Full Possibilities of Living

When Towanda William Noble went to school and the teachers asked him his mother’s age he replied, “My mother doesn’t believe in age.” And she doesn’t. Towanda William’s father, the late John Noble, internationally famous painter of marine and western scenes, didn’t believe in age. Shortly before he died in New York two years ago, he told people he was 60 years old one day and the next day told them 90.

When the west’s interest in the paintings of the man who was born where Wichita, Kansas now stands brought Mrs. Noble to Tulsa last week, those who had met her before and knew of the tumultuous years she had walked hand-in-hand with the great genius were amazed at how young she looked; amazed at her golden curls, few wrinkles and the twinkle in her eyes.

“I lost track of my own age soon after I married Mr. Noble,” she said. “And in my search for more strength to walk miles with him to see the sun rise; to sit all night with him beside the bare canvas for the inspiration that many times never came, I found that growing old was not necessary.”

[A sentence about her hair was redacted by Gloria with black ink. What is still legible reads, “When my hair…the rinse was…and the color was brighter.”] “When my baby was about two years old I had become the study of diet but I had eaten incorrectly so long that all of these years have been necessary for me to adjust my system so there was food for my hair.

“Two glasses of juice each day, half carrot and half orange, I learned give life to my skin and my hair. Sometime it is just a cocktail glass; sometimes a large glass. From a scientist I learned this. Jean Harlow received the same advice from Benjamon Hauser, Hungarian scientist, when she asked how to remain a blonde.”

To scientist, psychologist and philosopher Mrs. Noble tells of going. She read and studied everything she could find in every country. She needed more energy and more strength; she needed to become fresh both mentally and physically in order to be of more help to one who saw the inspired heights and sank to maddening depths of loneliness.

She decided that it is the race tradition back of us [genetics] that makes us grow old; that each person should be an artist with his body for his masterpiece and he should mould it carefully from what he eats and thinks; controlling it as the painter does his canvas.

In her careful study of diet she found improved that life comes from the life blood of the plant—the juice. Each morning she puts into her small juice machine and entire bunch of celery leaves and all; pea pods, beet tops, carrot tops—all tops generally thrown away, she explains. This juice she drinks between meals, thinning it with water if it tastes too strong. When the juice is not made or when she is traveling she drinks between meals what she calls a “pep” cocktail—the yolk of an egg beaten and added to a glass of orange juice.

When at home or when with friends she knows well, she eats her own food at the table with others. The tops of radishes, mustard greens, spinach and parsley she shaves fine and wilts only a few minutes with a bit of butter over a slow flame. If baked potatoes are served she passes her plate and gathers all of the peelings from others and eats them all. One of her more recent discoveries is the spinach-parsley combination: The body can’t simply can’t assimilate the iron in spinach perfectly without the presence of copper and so two portions of spinach should be eaten with one portion of parsley. Green beans, carrots and asparagus she also cuts fine and wilts only a few minutes and seasons only with butter and vegetable salt. In her pantry at home she keeps only raw sugar and honey for sweetening, whole rice, whole flour and all of the foods in their coarsest form.

One day a week she takes only liquid nourishment—tomato juice, sauerkraut juice, orange juice—one hour and one in the next. “If we keep our bodies clean and alkaline we cannot become ill,” she has proved.

“You are the only mother in the entire school who has never has a headache, is never ill and never in bed,” Mrs. Noble’s son who attends Friends Seminary in New York, told her. She can never remember having a cold.

“Health is all a matter of keeping your body chemically balanced,” she believes. She is tremendously interested in the new German science of typing persons chemically. The calcium person, for instance is tall and angular. He needs more sodium to dissolve the calcium.

Mrs. Noble thinks in this enlightened age it will be only a short time until it will be a disgrace to be ill; that more and more people are realizing that life is worth living to the fullest; that health is a combination of mental and physical development.

A negative thought in the mind is as bad as a poison Mrs. Noble warns in her enthusiastic giving of what she has learned in her search for a fuller life. Her great passion has always been beauty. She keeps ever in her mind Keats’ words, “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.” In her mirror at home is a little slip which reads, “Be bigger than anything that happens to you.”

Mrs. Noble is Alsatian. She speaks German, Italian and French. After living in for 15 years in Provincetown, Massachusetts, the French accent still lingers. She is rather small and her curls are tied with a narrow ribbon. She designed her own clothes and thinks more people should.

For the next year she will be busy with her late husband’s memorial exhibition the Wichita Museum of Art is planning and then she has many things she is anxious to do—music, art, literature and her dancing; she has never had enough time for them.

She has little family responsibilities now. Towanda William, age 16, is the business manager of the family. “He is the only one of one who talks about dollars. And we need him,” she laughed.

John Alexander Noble her other son, 23, has already established his name as a painter of New York Harbor scenes and authority on man power boats. In August he will leave the Great Lakes in a boat travel down the Mississippi and the Arkansas to Wichita, Kansas arriving in time for the Kansas Diamond Jubilee celebration there the first of October. He bought his boat with the money he received for a boat story. He will write the story of the boat trip, bringing in boat travel of all ages, for a syndicate.