For forty-six years she taught a subject that repels many a student—mathematics. But she found a way to take math—and her students (if only in spirit)—into outer space, and today her name is associated not with equations and integers but rather with stars and planets.
Charlie Mary Noble was born in Giddings in Lee County in 1877 and moved to Fort Worth with her family in 1888. Her father was a telegrapher and later a freight agent for the Houston & Texas Central railroad.
Charlie Noble graduated from the first Fort Worth High School on Jennings Avenue in 1895.
And began teaching at age eighteen at the Seventh Ward School on Magnolia Street.
She began teaching math in 1897.
By 1901 she was teaching in the Fifth Ward School on Missouri Avenue. Her principal was Robert Lee Paschal.
By 1905 she was teaching at her alma mater: Fort Worth High School. The next year Paschal would follow her from the Fifth Ward School and again become her principal.
After the first high school building burned in 1910 Noble and Paschal moved into the second high school building, also on Jennings Avenue.
In 1918 Fort Worth built a third building for Fort Worth High School (also known as “Central High School”) on Cannon Street. Noble became head of the mathematics department in the new building. You guessed it: Robert Lee Paschal again was her principal. Noble lived on Cooper Street in today’s medical district, just four blocks from her classroom.
In this photo of the Fort Worth High School faculty, the only person identified is Noble (circled). Standing beside the teachers in the lower left is principal Paschal. This undated photo was taken before 1935 because that’s when Paschal retired and the school was renamed for him. (Photo from Fort Worth Museum of Science and History.)
About 1920 Noble organized the Penta Club (motto: “Nothing is too hard for mortals”) for the school’s math honor students. In 1927 the club, under her guidance, began to apply the science of math to the science of astronomy: How much does the Earth weigh, and how is it weighed? What are the principles behind the motion of the planets? How did the constellations get their names? Why is the sky blue? Why can’t the stars be seen in the daytime? Why is summer time in Texas winter time in Australia?
In 1928 the Penta Club raised $200 ($3,000 today) to buy a four-inch refracting telescope, which was one of only two such instruments in the city. Noble showed Penta Club members how to use their telescope to see the rings of Saturn, to locate meteors speeding across the sky, to observe the phases of Venus, the evening star.
In 1931 Noble announced that the Penta Club had been recognized by the Harvard Observatory. Note the mention of Fort Worth’s other star-struck astronomer, Oscar Monnig.
As Noble taught her students, she herself was a student, attending Warren Institute here and later Sam Houston College. She received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas and bachelor’s and master’s degrees from TCU.
She retired from the school system in 1943. Now she was free to devote even more time to teaching astronomy.
And not just to children: During World War II because of Noble’s knowledge of astronomy she was asked to teach mathematics, astronomy, and celestial navigation at TCU as part of the Navy’s V-12 officer training course. In 1947 she founded an evening course in astronomy at TCU and would be awarded an honorary doctor of laws degree from TCU for her wartime teaching and her work in astronomy.
Also in 1947 Noble organized the Junior Astronomy Club at Fort Worth Children’s Museum (now Fort Worth Museum of Science and History) and was director of the club’s weekly astronomy classes. She also established a telescope rental service.
In 1949 the Children’s Museum added a planetarium and named it after Noble. The museum at the time was housed temporarily in the former home of banker Robert E. Harding at 1306 Summit Avenue on Quality Hill. (Photo from University of Texas at Arlington Libraries.)
In 1951 Noble assisted Henry M. Neely, lecturer and teacher at the Hayden Planetarium in New York City, by having her astronomy classes try a method that he thought would help instructors in navigation. The procedures developed by Noble for junior astronomers were so successful that the procedures were adopted nationally by the Junior Division of the Astronomical League of America.
In 1954 Noble shared the Altrusa Club’s Civic Award as “First Lady of Fort Worth” for her work in stimulating interest in astronomy among young people.
The Star-Telegram in an editorial wrote: “Thousands of former students of Paschal High School who came under the beneficent influence of Miss Noble and owe their zeal for knowledge appreciably to her will applaud the selection of their former teacher for the Altrusa Club honor.”
Also in 1954 the Children’s Museum moved to a new home—with a new planetarium—at 1501 Montgomery Street. The original planetarium had been a projector housed in a tent that sometimes leaked. The new planetarium—again named for Noble—was located in the new museum and seated 125 people. In 1955 the planetarium was dedicated. Also shown in the photo is J. Lee Johnson Jr.
Noble was regional director of the Astronomical League of America’s Southwestern Division and in 1956 was the first woman to win the league’s annual award for outstanding achievements in astronomy. She was praised as a “beacon light in the field of astronomy.”
Upon Noble’s return from receiving the award the Children’s Museum honored her with a reception.
The next year Noble, at age eighty, was up on the roof of the Children’s Museum leading her “moonwatch team” as it scanned the sky to see Russia’s Sputnik satellite.
The next year, at age eighty-one. Noble still led her weekly night class in astronomy at the museum, but her sight had become so poor that she could no longer see the stars and planets.
Charlie Mary Noble died in 1959 at the age of eighty-two. Mildred Noble, a cousin, said, “She said she lived for her work alone and that when that was gone she had nothing to live for. She loved the work and the children. The degrees and citations meant nothing to her.”
Charlie Noble had lived in her home at 1511 Cooper Street at least fifty years. Upon her death the Children’s Museum established the Charlie Mary Noble Memorial Astronomy Fund to further her work.
Charlie Mary Noble, who once said of her life, “When I first hitched my wagon to a star, I had no idea my wagon would give so many children a joy ride,” is buried in Greenwood Cemetery.
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