Kent Maxson Performing, "Mr Noble" - Live From Douglas Corner Cafe


I lost both of my grandpas within 6 months of each other.  My mother’s father, Gerhardt Reinking and my father’s dad, Noble Maxson we both carpenters.  I sang at both of my grandpas funerals.  The little church where they had my grandpa Reinking’s funeral could not hold all of the people.  They had to seat people outside.  At my grandpa Maxson’s funeral I met a woman who told me that “Your grandpa made me a jewelry box when I was a little girl.”  Her daughter, who was standing beside her then chimed in, “He made me one too.”  I knew that my grandpa Maxson had made cedar chests and jewelry boxes for all of his granddaughters and the wives of his grandsons.  I did not know that he had made them for other people.  We estimate that he made close to 600 boxes for children through the years.  I told Garth Brooks this story at one of our writing sessions and together we wrote the story of my grandpas.  The idea was to show how simple acts of kindness by people can change the world one person at a time.  I had written this song for my family and was both thrilled and surprised when Mary Duff recorded it.  She beautifully tells the story of my grandpas to the world.

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