Scandal Sheet: The End of the Frank & Grace Noble Marriage

William Cooper > Amos Cooper > William Lloyd Cooper > Ann Cooper Thompson > Omar Hazzard Thompson > Grace Lorene Thompson & Frank Noble 

Ann Cooper Thompson Hardy lost her first husband, Daniel Thompson after 14 years of marriage in 1864. They had seven children, including Omar Hazzard Thompson, the second born. Ann remarried Andrew Hardy and had two more children, one of whom died in infancy.

Omar and his wife, Mary Louisa Herbst married in Chickasaw County, Iowa on 25 Sep 1872. They moved west and by 1880, were living in Wheeling, Nebraska. They had six girls and finally a boy, Grace being the third child, born in October 1882 in Burwell, Garfield County, Nebraska.

Grace Lorene Thompson met and married Frank Noble of Illinois on an unknown date. They moved around a bit in Nebraska, then moved Haxtun, Phillips County, Colorado, where they were found in 1920. By this time, they had four children and owned a small hotel. Also noted in the 1920 census, was the fact that they also housed four lodgers: John Dill, Michael Burn, Charles Kester, and Hugh McLane.

1933 Billings MT City Directory

Frank and Grace were then divorced some time prior to 1929 when Mr. Hugh McLane, bachelor, married the divorcee, Grace Lorene Noble, in Livingston, Park County, Montana on 03 Sep 1929. They had been residents of Dillon, Montana. There is no indication that Grace kept the by-then teenage children, with her. They are all found in Nebraska on their own or married in 1930.

1933 found Hugh and Grace living in Billings, Montana. After this, no record is found, but I did find a grave marker for a "Grace L. McLane" located at Crown Hill Cemetery, in Park County, Wyoming which may be hers. No trace of Hugh exists either...except he may have gone to Colorado and worked as a woodcutter as of 1940, living with his business partner. I can't confirm this either.

Frank Noble reportedly died in 1958, though I've not been able to confirm. Three of their four children survived, Frank Jr. dying at age 53 in 1966 while living in Grand Island, Nebraska, after he was hit by a car while driving his son's motorcycle. Daughter Hilda died in Minnesota in 1995 after a long marriage to a railroad man and subsequent remarriage after his death. Daughter Helen married as well, dying in Nebraska in 2001.