Amelia Noles Houlton, a woman of unassuming grace and boundless love, died January 28. She was 78.
Amelia, known as Millie to her grandchildren, died quietly, in the same way she lived. She went in the night, and seemed to know it was time.
She was a mother, a grandmother, a wife, a sister, a Sunday School teacher, a woman who sought peace for those she loved through the storms of their lives and her own. She was a dancer always, taking tap and ballet from childhood into middle age.
Amelia found comfort in movement and dance, even as her life neared its end and her body began to fail. When caregivers tried to gauge her strength by asking her to raise her arms, she brought them elegantly to the sky in ballet’s fifth position, shoulders down, arms softly curved, hands hinting forward. She was beauty, poise and grace. Even in the face of death.
Amelia was born in 1944, as her father, Garfield Noles, served in the European Theater of WWII. She moved to Montgomery as a toddler and never felt the desire to leave. She graduated Lee High School in 1962 and was a long-time employee of the state of Alabama.
She was a lifelong Baptist, and for many years taught Sunday School to sixth grade girls at Forest Park Baptist Church in the Montgomery neighborhood of Cloverdale.
She took solace in hymns and carols, though she rarely sang them out loud, even in church. She hummed along to the old staples – “He Leadeth Me” and “How Great Thou Art” – even as she lost the ability to speak. Tears came as she hummed, but so did a smile.
Amelia cared for her children, always, through life’s troubles and successes. She cared for her own mother, Dorothy Noles, when she developed Lewy body dementia. When Amelia herself suffered and needed help she apologized, fearing not for her own pain, but the imposition she thought that might create on others.
She was shy and demure, and often put the comfort of others above her own. She served them without pomp or circumstance, finding the favorite dishes of friends and family in order to cook the foods they loved, buying greeting cards in bulk to send to the sick and alone. She was generous and kind.
Amelia was beautiful inside and out, with a sneaky smile and a contagious laugh and blue eyes she passed to her great-granddaughter Eloise.
She was dignity and strength, and above all she brought peace for those she loved.
“Do the best you can,” she told them. And they did. They will.
She will be missed.
Amelia was preceded in death by parents Garfield and Dorothy Noles. She is survived by husband Billy Houlton; her two adoring children — daughter Alecia Archibald (John) and son Jay Sherard (Shannon); brother Billy Noles (Judy), sister Amanda Zannini (Bob): along with grandsons Drew and Ramsey Archibald, granddaughter Mary Amelia Archibald, great granddaughter Eloise Mae Archibald and several nieces and
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