Harriet Tuttle Noyes
(May 18, 1933 – March 21, 2026)
Obituary, written by Isabelle Buchanan
Harriet Tuttle Noyes died at home surrounded by family on March 21, 2026, at the age of 92. She took her last breath while her husband of 65 years, Bob Noyes, sat next to her telling the story of a camping trip they took down Havasu Canyon as newlyweds. On one trek, when heavy rains and flooding threatened to trap them on the wrong side of a river they had crossed, he emerged onto the bank to see her leading both of their horses through the rushing high waters, already halfway across. This story was for Bob an illustration of a core truth about Harriet:
“she had spunk.”
Harriet was born in 1933 in New Haven, Connecticut, to Isabelle Hollister Tuttle, a painter, and Henry Emerson Tuttle, a printmaker and Master of Davenport College at Yale University. She spent her childhood with her three sisters on Yale’s campus during wartime, as her parents hosted students, Navy recruits, and a rotating cast of distinguished visitors. She delighted in regaling those gathered around her dinner table with the story of an occasion when the poet Stephen Vincent Benét discovered that the guest room suite was missing its towels only after he emerged from the bath. As she told it, “He dried himself with Kleenex, leaving a scene which my father said looked as if a large white bird had molted its feathers.” The Tuttle family spent summers on Nantucket Island, where Harriet learned to sail by crewing for her older sister Grace. Harriet grew into a master skipper herself, earning pennants in races with their 12 foot catboat, “Good Humor,” and then larger boats, and enjoying the freedom that sailing brought her.
After attending Radcliffe College, where she studied English, Harriet received her Master of Arts in Teaching from Yale University, and taught English at North Haven High School in Connecticut. During a summer spent in Colorado, where she went to earn an additional credit for her teaching certificate, she met Bob Noyes, who was working that summer at the Bureau of Standards, and on weekends earning a little extra money by offering car-transport and guide services for hikes in the Colorado mountains. They married in 1960, and moved to Pasadena California, where Harriet taught at Westridge School, and Bob finished his PhD in Astrophysics.
In 1964 they settled in a home on the edge of Spy Pond, in Arlington, Massachusetts, where they would spend more than 60 years. It was a home filled with stacks of bird books, and a pair of binoculars placed next to each window that looked out over the pond—evidence of a love of birds inherited from her father.
Everyone in Harriet’s orbit was grounded by her warm presence and her wise counsel. As a valuable member of groups, her skillful questions and careful listening helped move people forward toward consensus and action. In the second half of her career, she returned to school and received her Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology from Lesley College in 1987. Outside of her work as a therapist, she contributed her time to community projects that she cared about, including helping to establish the first hospice care organization in Massachusetts and facilitating support groups with Parents Helping Parents, guiding parents who experienced abuse and neglect as children as they navigated parenthood themselves.
As the child of artists, she found her own creative home in photography and writing. She took pleasure in capturing people in their natural state. She had a brown boxy Rolleiflex camera which she could rest in her lap, looking down into its large viewfinder without having to bring it up to her eye to frame her shot. This gave her the opportunity to surreptitiously snap a picture of someone’s expression, unspoiled by the stiffening effects of having a camera lens in one’s face. She set up a darkroom in the basement which the family affectionately nicknamed “Harri’s black hole.” The sign on the door read, “HARRI X-1” (a play on Cygnus X-1, the first black hole to be discovered by astronomers). Aloud and on paper, Harriet was a wonderful storyteller. With twinkling eyes, she transformed people long gone into vivid and present members of the family.
Harriet leaves behind her husband Robert Noyes, daughters Alison Noyes Buchanan (J Michael Buchanan) and Rebecca Noyes Gorrell (Greg Gorrell) and three grandchildren, Isabelle Buchanan, Rosie Buchanan and Val Gorrell.
The Westridge School yearbook dedicated to Harriet in 1962 reads, “To the one who has given generously of her friendship, guidance, and spirit; to the one who has shared with us her wisdom; to the one who is a ‘terrible tease…’”
To Harriet, we will miss you.
(to be continued)
