Noel Bates Rea

1900 - 1974  (74 years)

• Name	Noel Bates Rea
  Born	22 Apr 1900	Tracy, Lyon, Minnesota, United States
  Gender	Male
  Died	Jul 1974	Tracy, Lyon, Minnesota, United States
  Person ID	P44551592	My Genealogy
  Last Modified	10 Feb 2010

  
  

  Father	Orvin James Rea,   b. 07 Mar 1862, Oshkosh, Winnebago, Wisconsin, United States ,   d. 08 Jun 1940, Lakeland, Polk, Florida, United States  (Age 78 years)
  Mother	Clara Isabel Bates,   b. 04 Apr 1870, Dudley, Worcester, Massachusetts, United States ,   d. 27 Dec 1950, Lakeland, Polk, Florida, United States  (Age 80 years)
  Married	19 May 1888	Tracy, Lyon, Minnesota, United States
  Family ID	F5	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Luella L. Larson,   b. 26 Dec 1900, Near Morris, Kendall, Illinois, United States ,   d. Apr 1980, Tracy, Lyon, Minnesota, United States  (Age 79 years)
  Married	1920	Tracy, Lyon, Minnesota, United States
  Children	1. Loren N. Rea,   b. 24 Apr 1921, Tracy, Lyon, Minnesota, United States ,   d. 23 Feb 2003, Boonton, Morris County, New Jersey  (Age 81 years)   2. Russell Allen Rea,   b. 31 Dec 1924, Tracy, Lyon, Minnesota, United States ,   d. 22 Jun 1996, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States  (Age 71 years)   3. June Rea
  Last Modified	21 Jul 2019
  Family ID	F3	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Notes

  Noel was a postal worker in Tracy, Minnesota. His father had been a prominent Tracy businessman and postmaster of Tracy. Noel was a rockhound and spent many hours in his basement grinding and polishing stones, which he then used to make jewelryy. He and Luella lived at 124 Emory Street, in Tracy, and owned a small cabin at Lake Shetek, known as Rea's Red Shed. The 1920 census shows Noel was living at home with his parents at 19, working as a printer for the Tracy Headlight-Herald. This was just before he and Luella Larson married. Noel served in the U.S. Army during WWI, in 1918, as a motor pool chauffeur and auto mechanic. He was trained at Fort Monroe, Virginia and served in France, keeping army vehicles in operation. The following is my transcription of a letter from Noel to his grandmother, Mary (Wheelock) Bates, written when he was serving in the army during WWI. The letter, as I have it, was published in the Tracy Weekly Trumpet (four months later, it changed to the Tracy Headlight-Herald, following the death - from influenza - of Noel's older brother Elgin, who had been managing the paper for their father, in November 1918. The paper was sold, first, to J. T. Johnsrud who failed to make it profitable, then it was arranged by O.J. Rea - Noel's father and the publisher of the Weekly Trumpet - for J. D. Gilpin to assume Johnsrud's debts, and the paper) : Fortress Monroe, Virginia July 28, 1918 Dear Grandma: I received your letter tonight. I didn't get any mail yesterday. Today has been a little cooler than usual and it tried to rain several times but always cleared off. I suppose you know I have moved for a month to take this course. I think I was quite lucky in getting it as it will probably save a lot of walking and sleeping in the mud of France and I can also see a lot more of the country. But, I can't tell until I get there. We will be on most anything, from a tractor to a motorcyclcle. I think we will be driving some kind of a machine, though, and pretty soon. I mean within a few months at the most. Because the instructor says that they are in need of a lot of chauffeurs who can drive and make the small repairs. This month will be to learn all the parts and what they are for and how to fix them. It cost the government quite a lot to put us here and will be worth something when we get out, too. We haven't any Oldsmobile here but use the Paige as a model in the ininstruction room. Some of the tractors are 150 horse power and have those caterpillar wheels. This is a pretty place. Maybe Grandpa [Allen Bates] has been here before. The old stone wall with the moat around it is still here. It was built in 1803 and the cell where Jefferson Davis was imprisoned is here. Probably this place is on the map as it guards the entrance to the harbor. Norfolk is up the bay a ways and there are a lot of sailors around. There are a lot of battleships here. I saaw a submarine chaser with a captive balloon going out today. I suppose it was hunting for German submarines. The airplanes and biplanes are as thick here as autos. I sent Nona [Noel's older sister] a post card of one of the gates out of the forrt looking across the moat up the street by the Y.M.C.A. The last two weeks we are here we drive. They put cars in the ditch and we have to get them out and we also have night driving without any lights. The worst roads in Minnesota don't compare with the roads here. When we came down in trucks from camp Eustis, it took six or seven hours. The trucks drive and steer from all four wheels and several times we got stuck. They have men with mules all along the road to pull cars out when they get stuck. I will quit now. With love, Noel B. Rea, Chauffeurs Barracks C.A.S.D. Fortress Monroe, Virginia