By Albert Amateau
Emmit E. Noland, a retired banker and former U.S. Foreign Service officer, died Feb. 8 in his apartment on Perry St. at the age of 82.
A resident of the Village for many years, he retired in 1985 and was an enthusiastic traveler despite a long struggle with diabetes and Parkinson’s disease, said his friend Roy Newkirk.
One of five children, Emmit E. Noland was born Jan. 22, 1925, in rural Ben Hill County, Ga., to Emmit and Hester May Franks Noland. The family moved to Athens, Ga., where his mother ran a rooming house and where he went to high school. At the age of 18 he joined the Army and served in Company E of the 318th Infantry, a unit that won a commendation for action in the Battle of the Bulge during World War II.
After his discharge from the Army in 1946, Noland attended the University of Georgia where he became a Phi Beta Kappa scholar, edited the school’s literary magazine and earned a B.A. in journalism. He then went to George Washington University and earned a master’s degree in American diplomatic history.
He joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1951, served in Jakarta, Indonesia, and in 1954 went to Rome where he was second secretary of the embassy and vice consul when Claire Booth Luce was ambassador. He was posted to Seoul in 1957, but took a leave from the Foreign Service to accept a yearlong Harvard fellowship in economics.
He moved to New York in 1958 to work for Loeb Rhoades & Co. as a securities analyst and became a general partner in the Wall St. firm. In mid-1965 he went to work for Aetna Insurance Company in Hartford as an investment counselor and then returned to New York to work as an investment counselor for U.S. Trust Company.
Health concerns prompted him to retire in 1985 at the age of 60. He was a frequent traveler and spent a year in Paris in 1989. His travels also took him to Eastern Europe, the Caribbean and Costa Rica. Until two years ago he maintained an apartment in Tangiers where he spent summers. He was a lifelong member of the Episcopal Church and supported a small Anglican chapel in Tangiers, Newkirk said.
A nephew, Everette Noland, of Raleigh, N.C., and a sister, Barbara O’Malley, of Las Vegas, Nev., are among many relatives, including nephews, nieces, great-nephews and great-nieces who survive. His ashes were buried Feb. 17 next to his mother’s grave in the family cemetery in Franklin County, N.C. Redden’s Funeral Home was in charge of arrangements.
