Written by Michael Claxton
Last month, I lost two friends in the same week, at the same age and from the same illness. One I got to know over many years of sharing meals together, and the other I bonded with during an intense, two-month project. I’m grateful for a platform to share their stories.
Dr. Noble Goss taught Spanish and German at Harding for 25 years. He came to Harding just a year or so after finishing his Ph.D. in comparative literature. Having written his dissertation on two Renaissance epic poets would have been enough to make me like him, but Noble came to my rescue in a major way in 2012, not long before he retired.
There is no way to tell this story without nerding out, so thank you in advance for not judging us. At the time, I was writing a biography of a famous magician and her husband, who was a famous juggler. Dell was from Kansas, and Charlie was from Switzerland, and when they met in 1930, he was fresh off a decade of touring Europe and South America with his act. His mother lived in Zurich during that time, and he sent her postcards — sometimes several per day — from his travels.
During my research, I acquired a box containing over 800 postcards Charlie mailed to his mama. A biographer’s bonanza, they offered an almost daily portrait of a decade of his career that I knew nothing about. Only one problem. Charlie wrote in German. I did not read German.
I contacted Noble Goss, and he agreed to help. At the time, he was working from a tiny office in the Ezell basement, a place that was difficult for him to get to because he had Parkinson’s disease. Despite a heavy workload of his own, he generously gave me two hours per week for two months. I had put the postcards in chronological order, and I would hand him a card, and he would read it in English while I wrote down the translation. You will have to trust me when I say we had a marvelous time.
Charlie was not a brilliant writer, but nonetheless, his messages charted an exciting story of a young, carefree man traveling with circuses and seeing the world. And thanks to Noble, I could go on the adventure with him. Refusing any payment for this huge outlay of his time, all Dr. Goss said was, “I like to support research.”
I was not the only beneficiary of his skills. For over 26 years, he edited translations of Bible study materials for Truth for Today. He passed away Jan. 12 at the age of 79 in Oregon, leaving a wife, Teresita, and two children.
My other friend was Phil Dixon. The guys of Chi Sigma Alpha knew him well as a sponsor for over 20 years, until advancing Parkinson’s made him give up the camaraderie he loved. He was a mentor to young men, investing time in them, counseling them, appearing in their Spring Sing shows and attending every club event, even when a sponsor wasn’t necessary. But that was typical of his approach to everyone he cared about. A native of Batesville, Arkansas, Phil graduated from Harding in 1967, having sung in two choral groups. Three years later, he married Ann, with whom he raised four children during their 53 years together. He specialized in estate planning in law school and worked in banking for most of his career, plus a few years raising money for Harding.
I knew him from our Sunday school class. For at least the last 15 years, Phil and Ann joined our lunch group each week after church. We talked, we laughed and shared each other’s lives. We still do. We will miss Phil’s hospitality — he never met a stranger whom he didn’t invite to join us for lunch. We will miss his stories — even if he never left out a single detail and sometimes had to be gently encouraged by Ann to “finish the story, dear.” But his lifetime of interesting experiences gave him a ready reservoir of anecdotes. We will miss the fresh strawberries he loved giving away.
A quick story about Phil: a young couple at our church had a baby with major health problems, and they spent many long weeks at the hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas. One day, Phil went on his lunch break to see them even though he had just met them briefly at church. He only planned to stay a short while, but as he held the ailing infant, the mother fell sound asleep from exhaustion. She awoke two hours later to find Phil still there, gently rocking little Scout. He went back nearly every day.
If that isn’t the heart of a giver, I don’t know what is. Phil died Jan. 11 at 79.
