Nola Corene Arnold

Nola Corene (Lamb) Arnold was born May 8, 1935 to Medford Claud Lamb and Lois Ruth (Gilbert) Lamb of Guion, Arkansas. She completed a long life of 89 years in her home with loving family by her side on August 31, 2024. Norene grew up during WWII which influenced her life long priorities of a hard work ethic, patriotism, and conservatism. Norene didn’t gossip. She never spoke harshly about anyone and was always kind. Together, those qualities created a life as wide as it was long. Ralph Waldo Emerson would have considered Norene an almost perfect example of success as well as all that knew her. 

After graduating from Guion High School, Norene worked as a personal secretary, housekeeper, and nanny over the course of the next couple of years while attending business school in Little Rock. She then worked as a telephone operator in Wichita, Kansas and was able to transfer back to the Little Rock area through the telephone company. After returning, Norene married Carl B. Arnold on August 30, 1957. It was during their honeymoon that the $1200 that Norene managed to scrimp and save while working for the telephone company went on to pay some of Carl B. Arnold’s last year of med school tuition. The couple began their lifelong partnership which consisted of ½ a sandwich for lunch and a volunteer job that Carl B. took for the experience as well as a free meal, allowing them to save a tiny amount while the struggle continued. Griffin, the first of their three children, was born in ‘58. Carl B. and Norene bought Dr. Gunther’s clinic and moved to Salem. It was there that Norene became, possibly, the first hospital dietician in Fulton County. Norene prepared and cooked meals for patients that Carl B. had stay in the county clinic for nutritional support. In ‘61 the couple bought their first farm together and welcomed their second child, Cynthia. Soon after, they built the Salem Clinic followed by partnership clinics in Ash Flat and Mammoth Spring. Then in ‘71, M. Carl was born and even with a toddler, Norene continued to take on more responsibilities as the couple owned two hog farms and multiple cattle farms. She was even known to load a pony on the back of a pick up truck and lead kids around for hours despite her own fear of horses due to a friend who was killed in a horse accident which many people didn’t know. Norene’s loyalty and commitment to Carl B. during their 54 years of marriage before his passing and in his many years of service to the medical field could not be rivaled. 

Always the first to rise and last to bed, Norene cleaned her own home and mowed her own lawn in addition to tending to a very productive garden every summer as evidenced by the wall in the basement lined with jars of produce. One year someone counted 117 quart and pint jars of strawberry jam. You could always count on Sunday lunch followed by an absolutely fabulous butterscotch pie which later became a carrot cake from Vergie King’s recipe. Her potato soup was so delicious, it almost made being sick worth it. Norene’s family is absolutely certain that she holds the Guiness World Record for the most opened and closed farm gates as well as the record for the most bags of cattle cubes poured from a tailgate. Despite massive farm payments, drought, floods, disease, pestilence, snow that lingered only to turn into knee deep mud, and the trauma of calving out heifers, she was only heard to say, “I don’t know why anyone would want to do this,” just one time (well maybe twice). She spent hours watering calves in the corral along with keeping all the chute side records on working days in addition to providing an organized lunch in which even Joe (the boss dog) knew to expect an extra sandwich, a cool drink of water, and a loving pat on the head. She referred to the farms as “space”. Every conversation about the workday ended with “be careful in what you do” as well as instruction to take care of the little ones because they are “the most important”.

Norene Arnold wasn't the ordinary woman. She sacrificed whatever it took at any corner to see that the generations to come would have the best chance of success possible. She didn't want people to spend their money on things for her but rather save it for when times were tough as that was the focal point of her young years. She was inspiring to the degree that her foundational beliefs of hard work, love, resilience and patience are what she would want all to strive. A pioneer woman of her day she lived the farmer's wife life doing more than expected. She is laid to rest in the soil of which she tended for many years.

Norene leaves to mourn her passing two sons, Dr. Griffin Arnold and wife Brenda of Mammoth Spring, Arkansas and Medford Carl Arnold of Superior, Wisconsin; daughter, Cynthia Southard and husband Bob of Camp, Arkansas; three grandchildren, Robert Arnold (Rebecca), Matthew Arnold, and Brent Southard (Katie); four great grandchildren, Sadie Kate Southard, Sydney Claire Southard, Griffin Alexander Arnold III, and Elisha Arnold; many other relatives and friends. She is preceded in death by her husband (Dr. Carl B. Arnold), parents (Medford and Lois Lamb), and sister (Katherine Claudine Thompson).

In lieu of flowers or memorials, the family requests that unsolicited acts of kindness be done for those less fortunate instead. If you could do it without spending, Norene would like that.