Marsha Boyd Mitchell

Marsha Boyd Mitchell

Hatfield Point, New Brunswick

            At an early age, Marsha Boyd Mitchell, of Hatfield Point, New Brunswick, Canada, began gathering and recording the memories of her grandparents, their friends and neighbours. She was determined to capture as many of the old stories and reminiscences as she could before that generation passed on.
            I met her in early 1998, while she was preparing her last book for publication. She had chosen to write two chapters about Bob Nolan and his grandparents because they, too, were part of the Hatfield Point history. Bob was one of the “local boys who made good”. He was also one of Marsha's distant relations.
            Later, I came to know her grandmother, Elsie Boyd, through telephone conversations. As a very small child, Elsie adored the quiet Clarence Nobles who was to become Bob Nolan. Bob's younger brother Earle, closer to her in age, she remembered with a smile. Elsie and Marsha steered me through the family memories until a picture of the New Brunswick years of the two Nolan boys took shape.

Marsha's research provides background to the three years he spent on his grandparents' homestead, years that were to make a lasting impression on Bob Nolan.

• "Robert Clarence Nobles" pp. 48-52, The Old Belleisle, Beautiful Still, by Marsha Boyd, Over the Wall Publishing, 1998

• "Bob Nolan, the Son We Never Knew" Ibid. pp. 53-58

• Marsha's books about the Hatfield Point area of New Brunswick

• Where is Hatfield Point?

Most of the information I get is just oral history. My grandmother was younger than Robert Nobles but grew up next door to where he grew up, so a lot of the information I’ve gotten is from her and, basically, the information she’s got about his life is ‘just what they’ve always said.’
My great grandfather bought the farm from Charlie Nobles [Bob’s youngest uncle]. The house is gone now. My grandfather bought it from my great grandfather and my grandparents actually lived in the house for two years. Then it was torn down a few years later and my aunt and uncle have a house on the same lot. Where their house was is one of the most beautiful spots on the [Belleisle] Bay out here. It was really, really pretty.

View of Belleisle Bay from the hill behind the house. The new house sits where the old Nobles’ farmhouse stood.

Now he [Bob], I guess in the 30’s at some point, wrote an article in the local paper here - sent it in or something - and then I guess there were a lot of people a little upset about it because he’s always talked about back here as being very "rural and backwoodsey", which everybody got kind of a little upset about. But I chuckle because once you’ve lived in California, this is the backwoods!
My Grandmother, Elsie Brown Boyd, grew up next door to Bob. She describes him as gentle and "to himself". Of Earle she recalls stories of him unhooking their rowboat and letting it drift out into the Bay. It would seem he was always up to some sort of mischief. My grandmother went to the Kars school unlike Bob and Earle who went to Hatfield Point School. They walked about 2 ½ miles to school. They were right on the line to go to either Hatfield Point to school or Kars. The Hatfield Point school was always considered “better”.

Because of the distance through thick woodlands, children were often kept home from school until they were 7 or 8. If the weather was inclement, they were also kept home. Bob’s early education was sporadic at best. Bob recalls a lynx keeping pace with him on the way to school. While Bob and Earl were attending school with them, Marsha’s grandmother, 6, and her 7-year old brother made the one-and-a-half hour round trip in a cart (and a covered sleigh in winter) pulled by a donkey they called Peter. Their teacher was Rowena Urquhart and this was her first school. Earle remembered his childhood in N. B. as ‘good years’ but, because Bob was needed to plant, till, and harvest the crops, he would average only about three months in school a year. In spite of hardships, Earle Nolan recalled his life with his grandparents on the Belleisle near Hatfield’s Point with great fondness. (edm)

Transportation was by water, especially in the winter when the bay was iced over. Life in the region then was very difficult when Bob lived there. My great-grandfather said they’d have starved in the 1920s had it not been for fishing – both shipping and exporting. The closer one lived to the water, the easier one had it. In the winter of 1918, many people in the small community died of the flu, including a young mother and child who lived next door to Bob’s grandparents .
There was a man who came to visit my grandparents in 1984 from Ontario who was quite a fan of Bob Nolan’s. He came down here looking for people who knew about Bob and he eventually arrived at my grandparents' place. My grandfather took him down to the farm and he recognized the source of a lot of Bob's lyrics. S,o a lot of the different things Bob talks about in his songs----like every once in awhile a lyric will pop up and it’ll be from something from the old homestead. I have one where he says there was an ivy-covered shack, a wishing well in back [Shadows of the Wildwood]. My grandfather will say that there was this ivy-covered shack and out back there was this well and that was, very plainly in my grandfather’s mind, a landmark from the old homestead.

Site of the old Nobles' well, Bob Nolan's wishing well. The apple tree was planted by the old well. The well has been filled in.

            It’s a major mystery to me why he [Bob] didn’t come back to visit. My grandmother has kept in contact with a lot of his family. He had a cousin from North Conway, New Hampshire. As a kid I remember we took my Grandmother down to visit her and she used to keep in contact with these ladies who lived down there. Those ladies went to one of Bob's shows in the 30’s and tried to talk to him after a show but he just sort of brushed them off. Didn’t want to talk to them. That was just one story, and their opinion, but he didn’t really want to talk to them. Or, he did talk to them but he didn’t really want to have a ‘good old homecoming’ with them .
            My grandfather always says that he doesn’t know where Bob got his musical talent from because it doesn’t seem to run in the family line. He often remarks, "It was quite amazing that Robert ends up in music."
            It’s amazing to me that he went on to Hollywood with Roy Rogers and the whole deal with the movies and everything, when here we know him as ‘people we went to school with, we know up and down the road’. As for small-town Canada not making heroes out of their success stories, well, we are very different than our American counterpart, aren’t we? Could be that we don’t feel we share the success the same way as Americans would. I think in Bob Nolan’s case, it comes down to a matter of attitude as well. Maybe he gave [the impression] that he became a success despite his homeland not because of it. There’s a world of difference.
            I think, too, people were pretty busy in these parts feeding their families during the Depression. I don’t get the sense here that Bob Nolan was much more than a point of interest brought up casually. But then people weren’t reading about him every month in things like People magazine or seeing him and Roy Rogers on Oprah. Sure, he was on the silver screen but who ever got to the movies from Hatfield Point? That was a major trip to Saint John [the nearest city] in those days, only made for very important occasions. I believe my grandmother was eleven before she ever got there the first time.

            Here in Hatfield Point and the Belleisle Bay we aren’t even small town. We’re a winding piece of road. I don’t know. I guess I’m trying to make sense out of it myself. Maybe something happened in Bob Nolan’s childhood that he couldn’t get past. You never know about such things. We are proud of Bob Nolan in our own way.
            Another thing I thought about was that, since he left here so young, nobody really had a chance to know him. If he’d left here when he was twenty, let’s say, he would have worked around with a lot of the men here, probably - that kind of thing. And between him and Earle, he was the quiet one. He was quiet and to himself.
            My grandmother mentioned the other day that the Nobles had a gramophone. She said that they would play it for her and her sisters when they would go over there. I think they were real nice people, from what she says. When all of Charlie Nobles’ children had moved to the States, and after Charlie himself passed away, Mrs. Nobles came and asked my grandmother to look after her. But she ended up going to Boston to stay with one of her girls. Gram always speaks highly of them. In fact, about eight years ago, my father took my grandmother to Vermont to see Grace [Bob’s aunt] a couple of years before she died.
            Your interest in Bob Nolan has sparked an interesting small family feud in this part of the country. All in good fun, of course. When I was little, I used to have the nicest little white spool bed. But when I was about 8, my mother traded this bed with my aunt (my dad’s sister) for another one. Well, my older cousin Suzanne fell heir to the white spool bed. I eventually found out that the white spool bed came out of the Nobles’ house and was actually Bob Nolan’s bed. But, try as I might, I cannot get my cousin to give up the bed. She really is getting quite a joke out of me wanting it back now. She tells me she’ll give it to me for a wedding present!
            I think you would find it so interesting to come here sometime and just talk to my grandmother. She’ll be 81 this year, but still remembers things from her childhood so clearly. Just the other day, she told me how Mrs. Nobles used to hook rugs. Gram told me that she hooked some of the nicest rugs around. But there are so many little details that she remembers about those days.
            I must say it is beautiful here this time of year. The pictures I hope explain themselves with a little help from the captions on the back. I hope you can capture the landscape of the Belleisle a little better from these pictures.

This is the view Bob would have seen from the porch of the old homestead, looking toward the road and Belleisle Bay.

I finally got the dates you wanted. I mow the local cemetery here in the village. Anyway, it dates all the way back to the early settlers of this area. So, almost weekly in the summer, I drive by Bob Nolan’s grandparents’ tombstone. Charlie Nobles died in 1935 and his wife 1943. Yes, it was Charlie Nobles who was Bob Nolan’s grandfather. And his wife was Ella.

The tent meetings are another matter. My grandmother said she couldn’t remember any tent meeting down river as Bob had described and has been recorded several times by writers. But there is only one thing that either my grandmother or I can think of. There is a Wesleyan conference ground about twenty miles down river from where Bob lived. Now they’ve held camp meetings there for ten days each year since 1896. People often went down on the river boats to hear the special speakers and singing. My grandmother well remembers attending. Even those who were not associated with any church enjoyed the event. So that could be what Bob is talking about.

The following excerpts are printed as is, with permission by the author: pp. 48-58, The Old Belleisle, Beautiful Still, by Marsha Boyd, Over the Wall Publishing, 1998. No attempt has been made to edit.

Robert Clarence Nobles
            His beginning in 1908 was not like that of other boys in the area. Nor was the way in which he existed in the region. There were only a few years in between that draw heavy similarities to the others he chummed with in school. Yet years later, when children are required to do school reports about the area, he is often mentioned. When it comes to documenting who from the Belleisle has acquired fame—he’s it. It seems strange that we could care so deeply about a figure that is “ours” when he never even mentioned our place by name. That has added to the confusion as to where he’s really from. But where he’s from or who raised him, or how old he was when he left here are not the only questions that surround the life which was Bob Nolan’s.
            His life remains unknown to the majority of us. He rose to importance outside the New Brunswick circle. He began, not because of his eastern heritage, but almost despite it. All of that wasn’t his fault. He had been taken from his home. Most would say he adjusted very well. Certainly nobody could dispute his success. Though one of Roy Roger’s “Sons”, we would still like to claim as our own.
            His life set out in the way of the cowboy. He would end it in much the same form. Among the happenings, things would happen setting him apart from his adult contemporaries. Of course before Roy Rogers and other such Hollywood cowboy legends, Bob Nolan’s peer group had been boys such as Stu Hatfield, Charlie Burns, and Gilbert Morrell. Bob was an ordinary boy trying to make the best of his life.

His birthplace had been in Western Canada, Winnipeg many have said. He was born with Eastern blood on his father’s side, though. His father, Harry Nobles, had gone West to seek his dream. With a trunk full of broken illusions and a disintegrated marriage, he began to rebuild his world one step at a time. Meanwhile, his wife took their two boys East to live with Harry’s parents. Clarence (as Bob was called then) and his brother Earle were two very young and vulnerable boys. They made a new home near the Belleisle Bay, on a beautiful piece of acreage. From the house, you could see how the Bay stretched wide and deep, but from the hill behind the house, you could see almost the entire body of water. Its strong hills that jutted in and out of that water made for an engaging landscape.
Maybe it was somewhere on the hill back of the house that Clarence Nobles did some of his best dreaming.

Young Bob Nolan's "wildwood".

            His grandfather taught him many aspects of the farming trade. Clarence and Earle settled into the life quite nicely. Their surroundings were quiet and “homelike”. We can be assured that was the kind of life their father wanted for them—a simple life in the country knowing the land that he too had known as a boy. The western terrain was rugged then and surely a life back east would do them well.
            Schooling was carried out in normal fashion for the times. The boys attended the Hatfield Point school. We don’t suppose that the boys with whom Clarence Nobles socialized knew who he would become. There was no way for him to be aware of what his future held. In fact, if one was to recall Clarence and his brother Earle, Earle would leave the stronger trail of reminders. He was known as a boy who could smell out trouble. Probably among the boys at school, Earle was almost a hero. He seemed to laugh in the face of danger and could be dared to do almost anything. Clarence, on the other hand, was a quiet boy that kept more to himself. Earle was the attention seeker. The child that seeks usually manages to find. Often that’s the way it is with two siblings. The quiet one can get left unnoticed in the pool of adolescent pranks that the active child brings about. It’s too bad really, but that seems all too often the ebb and flow of life. The child that requires more maintenance for behaviour or otherwise, takes the allotted attention.
            Other than living in the shadow of Earle’s shenanigans, Clarence was well adjusted. He hadn’t lived long enough in the West to have attachment to it. Being raised by his grandparents at least gave Clarence and Earle a home and at the most put them in touch with their roots. I believe it was the latter that easily could have led Clarence to stardom. The years he spent there, in the spectrum of his whole life were few, but crucial to his formation. Yet there were other things that factored into the equation of who he would become.
            When Clarence was in his [pre] teens, things took a drastic turn. Earle and Clarence had been living peacefully with their grandparents when a letter came from their father. It spoke of his visit to the area and his intentions of taking the boys west with him. Clarence was quiet for the most part, but Earle despite his half grown body, cried. This to him was the only home he had ever known. The day came and their father did as he had promised. The boys packed a few of their collected possessions and were gone. As they left Kars and Kings County, Clarence looked at the Belleisle for the very last time. He was old enough to know, but too young to possibly understand it all.
            Many here say that when they came to the border—that unwavering symbol that stood between two countries—the father made a decision. Whether or not he made it at that moment or it was a premeditated act, we’ll never know. He changed the family name from “Nobles” to “Nolan”. One article on his life said that he did that because it sounded more “western”. Hearsay along the Belleisle was that he did it so the mother couldn’t find them. What a person chooses to believe is up to the individual. Gossip certainly does not always find itself in the light of truth, yet often in the median you find something that closely assimilates. So with the family name disregarded and his first name, Robert, being shortened to Bob, a name that would soon be known in every North American household was born….
            “Drifting Along With the Tumbling Tumbleweeds” were words Bob Nolan would come to write and sing. Easily they could have been words he felt in the depth of his soul. After Earle and his newly named brother Bob crossed the border, they went to Boston. [They lived there for a few years with two of their aunts while their father moved on. Bob resided with the sisters for two years.] From there he joined his father crossing many states to get to the Arizona Desert. It didn’t seem Arizona held that growing teenager for long. The States were booming with an advancing society not yet heard about in New Brunswick. Bob Nolan wanted to taste it all. We’ve only until now assumed that those who formed that original “Pioneer Trio” were men he met on his journey. Bob Nolan must have felt very much like a true pioneer, searching this strange new terrain. The United States was vast and in parts of the West, very wide open. Bob Nolan drifted, as others did, into a success that would be more than anyone could have hoped for.
            Bob Nolan starred in over a hundred movies and recorded hundreds of songs. If ever we on the Belleisle held a true celebrity in our ranks or ever held a son that shone, it is him. He was ours even though he never came back home to the Belleisle. One would be forced to believe that home was many places for him. To a person who experiences many different life-views, home could end up being any one of them. Is everybody born at that place which for a lifetime is called home? No, I believe Bob Nolan found his home elsewhere.
            Bob Nolan was a victim of circumstances really, where situations at best were out of his control. It wasn’t his fault that things didn’t go well out West or that his father didn’t see fit to leave him and his brother on the farm in Kars, New Brunswick. We can be sure not long after he arrived in the Arizona Desert with his father that he began to search out life for himself. Like most young people he wasn’t certain where the search should begin, only that he would try. Once he had tasted life, that high life where everything was faster, he stayed in it.
            Roy Rogers and “The Sons of the Pioneers” topped the charts in the 1930’s. There was an honesty about the music they played that people could endear themselves to. They sang haunting tunes with lyrics of old homesteads and new places. Certainly no one could dispute that the clean cut cowboys were onto something. They were a big hit. Those along the Belleisle listened to the radio and often heard their songs. It wasn’t long until they recognized the Bob Nolan they heard on the radio as the Robert Clarence Nobles who had grown up in the home of his grandparents. He was a boy they had gone to school with, chummed with as young boys do. A girl or two may have recalled the crush she’d had on him. Mostly he was just a regular chum, but they didn’t know him now that he was a country and western singer. He was known better now to places like Hollywood, California, the silver screen and recording studios.
            People often remarked about how he never came back to the Belleisle again, thinking himself too important. We need not judge so harshly. We cannot sell him short. His life of stardom was based on the cowboy mystique that appealed to the American public. A lifestyle that was in jeopardy if he tied his roots too closely East. Bob Nolan wanted to remain and not be the Robert Clarence Nobles that his grandparents had raised in a small rural community in Kings County, New Brunswick. No, he had to be Bob Nolan, son to the open frontier. To have no real home and be completely free to ride on the range.
            Then too once you’ve been taken, snatched from one place and implanted into another, you can’t expect the best course of adjustment. Especially given the time period. Travel wasn’t always accessible, even for a movie star like Bob Nolan. But then excuses shouldn’t be uttered. We imagine they aren’t the real reason he didn’t come back. Maybe he didn’t know where he stood. All he knew was the life he lived then and the one he had come to know in the States as an adult, were like mixing oil and water. Even amidst all of that his mind did drift to the old Nobles farm near Hatfield Point. His music tells us that. We hear in one of his songs, Shadows of the Wildwood, that he sang of pieces of the old property. And he told of the candle that always shines in the widow there for him.
            There’s an apple tree now on the old Nobles property that grew up where that old well was. The “ivy covered shack” that had the “wishing well in back”, was a piece of the old farm here on the Belleisle. Where Bob Nolan maybe did not visit bodily, I think he went back in his mind several times. Maybe he thought there would always come a better time to come back here, when circumstances would even out. The problem is that situations rarely work themselves out that way to provide a moment of perfection on which to embark.
            What the media said about Bob Nolan when he was at his sharpest musically was this: “His songwriting may be the finest ever to appear in country music. A brilliant poet with an inventive ear for melody and harmony, he virtually invented the sound and style of western harmony singing single-handedly. He supplied the once thriving field with the great majority of its many classic songs.”
            Are we proud of him? Of course we are, we couldn’t help it. Although we do wish he had at some time made his presence known here. Not for us or for the glory of the Belleisle area, but for himself. We all need to make peace with our past at some point. We must grow in some fashion to love the land which raised us. It becomes part of the excursion of self completion.
            In his song, They’re Gone, he wrote seemingly about his grandparents passing, he let us in to a bit of his soul. He never did forget those days. This song was not number one on the charts, but its depth of truth gives us insight about Bob. The words speak of his old deserted homestead and of the days he spent working there with his grandparents. Bob even talks of his homesick heart. You can feel the distress in the words as he talks about them being gone. Bob Nolan never completely forgot where he came from.

Bob Nolan, the Son We Never Knew
            When Harry Nobles crossed the border and changed his family name from “Nobles” to “Nolan”, it was a calculated move. At that moment, the people here, around the Belleisle, ceased to know who this boy-becoming-man was. His eyes beheld different landscapes than ours and in his heart different dreams.
            Bob Nolan stayed with two of his aunts in Boston when he first went to the States. Rumour has it that it was a need for more education that brought them across. Schools were of a much finer nature in Massachusetts than they were in New Brunswick. The two women were sisters on Harry’s side. All of Harry Nobles brothers and sisters did eventually move to the States. They did not all settle in the same area, but they all had that pull to go beyond what they knew; deciding southern shores held more for them.
            In Boston, Bob and his brother Earle received a more consistent form of education. It was there they came in contact with forms of music they had not been familiar with back home. Folk style and country music were beginning to be popular in the United States. At this time, we assume Bob took no special interest in this new field of study; it influenced him only on a subconscious level.
            The penny would not drop for him until a few years after a bend or two in his road. His true discovery of musical ability probably happened after he moved from Boston. Bob’s father, who had been a tailor in the United States Army retired for health reasons to the Arizona Desert. Bob was joining his father once more.
            Bob talked about the desert as though it had mesmerized him at first glance. That hot, dry, wide open land poured itself deep into the abyss of his soul. After all that was seemingly misplaced in his life, he finally found something he wanted to know as home—though he didn’t embrace that notion fully. Rambling was in his blood. Facing the truth one knew he had spent his young life being shifted from one place to another. With those thoughts in the back of his mind, he hopped a train and decided to see those United States by “riding the rails.”
            I try imagining what kind of life that must have been for him just hopping on and off freight cars at will after seeing or living in each place. This could have been where many of his thoughts of being a cowboy began to form. It would seem to me he must have become quite introspective.
            That first train he got on took him all the way east to Maryland. The destination did not suit and he was on the next train heading west. Ken Griffis in, Hear My Song, had this to say about Bob’s travels:
            "This restlessness caused him to travel constantly, covering the length and country several times, never going anywhere in particular, but always going. The haunting sounds of the train whistles were to remain with him and were to be the central theme of his first composition, “Way Out There.” Another train song, “One More Ride,” was written as a sequel a few years later." (Hear My Song, Ken Griffis 1996.)
            In this modern age it seems we use all kinds of noise to drown out what is essentially real. It must have been the same for Bob. Perhaps the hum of the train engine dulled the ache in his own spirit. And later, as Mr. Griffs [sic] said, he would write sentiments that expressed his feelings of those days spent on the rails. He used words expressing his longing to hear the “clickety clack” of the train hitting the tracks. Home could never hold him very long in those years because the tracks became a sweeter place with its hollow whistle and fulfilling dreams.
            It would appear that his traveling affected him the rest of his days. There were times when he looked on life with great wistfulness. When he did tire of his running, he decided to join his father. Harry had moved now from the Arizona Desert to California. Bob was reunited with him in 1929 in time to see the repercussions of the stock market crash. Well, not all the fallout, it was yet to come. Bob would not know then that the stock market crash would inevitably touch every place he had contacted on his journey. It would even, in time, touch the home from which he came.
            Upon the arrival of that dark day and the ones that followed, Bob decided his traveling should cease and he must set to work. He got a job and stayed in California. He first joined a Chautauqua tent show that was near Santa Monica. That did not prove to be a profitable venture for long. It was then he began to flirt with songwriting.
            It was only a beginning to what would become a very successful songwriting career. It was amazing how many song lyrics he had locked inside him. There were rumours that Bob studied music at the University of Arizona. While that may be true, the University has absolutely no record of it. It would seem to me that a music department of any school would like to claim Bob Nolan if they could. So if on the other hand it is true that he did not attend there or a secondary institution of any kind, the music lay solely within himself. He over the years has impressed many as a true poet. Bob Nolan had an artist’s soul.
            While he was busy trying to earn his way on the West Coast, he responded to an ad in a local newspaper for “The Rocky Mountaineers”. Pulling through the audition process, he got the job. He sang first as a tenor; encouraged a friend to join, then he dropped to baritone.
            Honours would soon begin filling his ranks. But not until after he had shared in his own hard circumstances. The Mountaineers were not as successful as maybe Bob would have liked. It did give him advancement on his musical career, but financially the manager probably took home the returns. Things though, as they sometimes do, had a way of looking up.
            At the high point of the Depression, Bob made what many would consider an unwise decision. In 1933, after being approached by two friends, Tim Spencer and Leonard Sly (who would become Roy Rogers) Bob was facing a choice. They asked him to join a trio that they wanted to start. Bob was reluctant in the beginning. The other men knew if they wanted to be a success they had to practice long grueling hours. There would be no time for paying jobs. With reserve, Bob agreed.
            The weeks and months that followed were difficult. We are sure Bob must have wondered many times if he had made the right decision. Those kinds of thoughts tend to creep up on a person when they are alone in the quiet of the night. While they worked long days writing and practicing their performance, there was no money and the trio had to determine deep inside that they could make it.
            Eventually their break did come when a local radio station began to play their music in conjunction with another show. When the “Pioneer Trio”, as they called themselves, began to play over those radio waves, it was becoming increasingly apparent that this new group was onto something.
            Bob Nolan flourished as a songwriter during this time. He would later relate that writing songs came easily for him. There was a time in his life when he would either write or finish a song almost every day. He admitted there was no real “philosophy” or “formula”; he just wrote down what he felt.
            As time rolled past them, they added to the group. In [1934], Hugh Farr, a fiddle player, joined them. They made a somewhat rocky evolution from “The Pioneer Trio” to “The Sons of the Pioneers". During one of their radio programs the announcer heralded them as “The Sons of the Pioneers”. The group found it appalling in the beginning. They couldn’t wait for their set to get over so they could question this bold announcer. He smoothed things over when he told them they looked so young they were more the age of pioneering sons than actual pioneers. The explanation seemed to suit—forever after they were known by that title. Quickly they became a household name in the United States.
            In 1935 they were offered their first movie deal. They appeared in many motion pictures with big name movie labels. The group often appeared giving musical numbers throughout the movie. Bob Nolan, however, along with Roy Rogers, often landed acting parts. Bob made an excellent candidate for the movies with his broad shoulders and good looks. The estimation is that he appeared in close to one hundred movies. The movie attention helped them push their cowboy image even further. Ironically enough though, it was Eastern bred Bob Nolan who was given credit with helping the group establish their image. Ken Bindas, when doing his doctorate at the University of Toledo in Ohio had this to say:
            "Few persons contributed more to forming this popular imagery of the West than Bob Nolan. By examining Nolan’s life and the symbolism of his songs, one discovers the emergence of a modern conception of the West. Unlike the more traditional folk songs that “came to the West…from far distant sources, “The Sons of the Pioneers” created and popularized their work in the West."
            In fact, Bob Nolan, during a good duration of the early years, was the best known “pioneer” in the group. They were commonly known to the average persons as “Bob Nolan and “The Sons of the Pioneers”.
            Bob was not the kind of man to want this up front role. Those who knew him best said that he was a loner and a very private man; most who knew him considered him of a very caring nature. From what I read, I think he found more reward in the writing of his own work than the performance end of things.
            He was a songwriter like no other. Fans were amazed at his ability to write music designed specifically for three and four part harmonies. The group often sounded as though they had once voice. The poetry in his songs was inspiring. The cliché, “the strong silent type” seemed to fit Bob Nolan. There was a mystery that surrounded him that would only play out in his deep lyrics. It is there in his songs, reading them line by line, where you can get to know him…
            It was evident that he fell in love with the desert. As his musical career grew, the group did many cross country tours. Surely he had seen much of the country in which he had taken up residency so many years before. There is no mistaking his true love for the West. That’s where he found his heart to be. He said there were sights and sounds in the desert that a person had to acquire a liking for . He explained this western landscape in his song, “My Mistress the Desert”.
            He sings of the pilot who would some day spread his ashes along the sandy trails of the place he learned to love so well. And he equates his love of the desert with the love of a woman. Bob knew that the imagery was deep as were his true feelings. It seemed as though the desert understood a part of him that no person could. In many of his songs he expressed how the wide open space affected his senses. Those feelings made him fall in love with it time and time again. He hadn’t always known it—therefore it couldn’t be taken for granted.
            Bob Nolan or Robert Clarence Nobles died of a heart attack June, 1980. It was a shock to those who were close to him. Many of his friends who saw him a few days before said he looked the picture of health.
            His career is still celebrated through the years since his death. He once said it was a grievance to him that the work he did in his late years would not act recognition until his death. It seemed that self-prophecy became reality. But everything he wrote now has wide exposure. At his own request, there was no funeral service. He was cremated and his ashes were spread over the Nevada Desert. It must have been the place dearest to his heart. Bob Nolan finally had found a home.

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