Leonora Lee grew up in Stockport. Her first encounter with the Oxford Group was probably through Bill Jaeger who attended Stockport Grammar School with her three brothers. When Bill went off to London to study theology, Leonora kept in regular touch with his mother, Annie Jaeger, who ran a hat shop. They would share the thoughts from their morning ‘quiet times’. Annie confided in Leonora that she only had ten shillings (50p) to her name. Annie eventually sold her home and the shop and worked as a full-time volunteer with MRA. Her story is told at https://www.foranewworld.org/people/annie-jaeger.
After completing a degree in English at Leicester University, Leonora became a primary school teacher. She had engaging stories of how applying thoughts that came to her in her morning quiet times helped her pupils. During the Second World War she was a volunteer air-raid warden and never forgot the sight of the sky above Manchester, some eight miles away, aglow with burning buildings following a bombing raid.
In the immediate post-war period she met and married Edwin Noble. They set up home in Manchester, and Leonora suspended her career in order to raise their two sons, Kenneth and Robert. Once Robert was at secondary school, she started teaching at the school in Ardwick where Edwin taught. Edwin spent many evenings attending union meetings but Leonora kept the home fires burning. And she was involved with all the work that MRA was doing in education as well as in local initiatives. She had a considerable gift for caring for people and was not afraid to challenge what she felt was wrong. On one occasion, upset that a newsagents outside the school was displaying what she felt was an indecent ‘top-shelf’ magazine, she told the shop-keeper that if he didn’t remove it she would call the police. To her surprise, when she went by the following day, all the top-shelf magazines had disappeared, presumably because the shop-keeper didn’t know to which magazine she was referring.
Leonora’s stated approach was ‘world changing through life changing'. She was a loyal friend to people and encouraged them to listen to God for direction. Ann Panks, who runs a hostel for young people coming out of correctional facilities, still talks about how much she owed to ‘Leo’ more than 20 years after her death.
