Emily Noyes Beebe

Storyteller: Kathleen “Kitty” Coxe–Koomen

Location: Virginia

My father, Whitwell Wentworth Coxe, was born April 24, 1884 in Roanoke, Virginia. He married a lovely, caring lady named Emily Noyes Beebe of Spartanburg, South Carolina in 1909. Whitwell was a lawyer and he and Emily had five children; four boys and one girl. Although she was not a nurse, when the pandemic flu came to Roanoke, Emily helped care for flu victims all over the city. No one she took care of died, but Emily herself became ill with the flu and she did pass away in 1919 at the age of 35. Sometime later my father remarried and his second wife was my mother, Kathleen Kelly Coxe. My mother raised my five half-siblings and me, and this wasn′t easy because the older kids all wanted their mother back! Emily is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Roanoke. Whitwell is buried next to her. And my mother, Kathleen, is buried on the other side of daddy.