Alicia Knoll, Everyone's Nana

Alicia Vernon Knoll of Derby, VT, died Sunday, September 3 at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. She was 75. To know her was to love her remarked a close friend at the news of her passing which was a sentiment echoed by friends locally and as far as New Zealand. She was a true lady who meant more to so many than the following words can describe.

She was born to humble beginnings in Waycross, GA, the daughter of a mechanic and an artist and she moved to Jacksonville, FL, as a child, which would be her home for 45 years. Her adventurous spirit was on display at an early age when she borrowed her parents' mustang and drove across state lines only to be pulled over by a Georgia police officer who didn't appreciate her sass. She was put in a holding pen to await the local judge but decided to slip out an unlocked window and wait further in the police officer's vacant chair. The judge and cop were none too pleased and thankfully her parents were able to send the large fine via Western Union to secure her release.

At 21, she met her future husband, Frank Knoll, who had stopped to use her parents' phone on his way to another date. It was just one of the many lovely and incredible coincidences that marked her life and three months later at the 1969 Apalachicola Oyster Festival she agreed to marry him. At the wedding ceremony in Thomasville, GA, a less than fully sober justice of the peace presided over their nuptials at one point asking an empty courthouse if there were any objections. When her now husband asked the Judge if the ceremony had been legal, he remarked, "well son if this ain't legal then there are a lot of bastards here in Thomas County."  So began Alicia and Frank's love story which lasted over 53 years.

Alicia returned to Jacksonville, and she joined her new husband in England while he studied for his Master's degree and where she attended London Polytechnic College. At the completion of their studies, she and Frank joined a fellow graduate student from New Zealand and bicycled across Europe, sleeping in farmer's fields and enjoying the scenery of France, Portugal, and Spain. It began what would be a constant theme in her life-traveling to new places and always making new friends along the way. One of those places was Vermont in the 70s, which charmed them both but was beyond their means at the time. But the seed of attraction for the Green Mountain state was planted.

Five years later in Jacksonville, she welcomed her first child, Felix, and four years after that her second son, Garrett. She was made to be a mother. With her husband Frank traveling around the world for work, she took charge in raising the boys and made good friends with their neighbors. Some of the neighborhood kids would stop by her house first to say hi before heading to their homes after school. She, Frank, and the boys continued to travel and find adventures. In the winters, when the boys were old enough, the family started traveling on annual ski trips to Colorado, where her hot pink ski jacket crisscrossed the powdered slopes. In the summers the family would return to Colorado for a few weeks each year, including one trip where her husband was driving perilously close to the edge of an unfenced mountain pass. Terrified, and unsuccessful in getting Frank to drive more safely, Alicia turned to the boys and commanded, "Your Father's lost his mind, get ready to jump."

Back in Jacksonville, Alicia's stable of close friends had grown to include neighbors, her husband's global business associates, friends of friends, and friends of relatives. Everyone it seemed just loved her company and her good humor and she reveled in making them feel welcome and at ease. She never tired of company, never felt bothered by visitors or phone calls from friends and relatives. And she liked nick names especially one of her friends who took to calling them both Thelma and Louise. She'd get a call, "hey Thelma, it's Louise, let's go catch that movie at the local cinema" where the two of them would sneak in cheese and crackers along with a small bottle of wine.

Her boys got older, went off, and eventually graduated college and the military; her husband sold his business and their gaze turned north towards Vermont. That Green Mountain seed had grown beyond an idea into a calling for their next chapter. Alicia, a true southern girl, never liked the cold but Frank promised if they found a home in Vermont, he'd make sure it was warm enough for her. So, she managed their home in Florida while Frank roamed the Northeast Kingdom looking for a home that would be suitable for Alicia and future Knolls. When Felix and his wife Hanan drove up from New York City to share the news of Hanan's pregnancy, Alicia couldn't contain her joy. She stayed awake all night trying to decide what to be called. She chose perfectly. From then on, she would be known as Nana.

They eventually found that perfect home on Derby Pond which had once been a three-season house open in the summers and boarded up in the winters. Frank stayed true to his word, and they refinished the house together with proper heating and insulation and of course a wood burning stove in the kitchen just in time for the arrival of their first granddaughter, Sasha, in 2005. Friends flocked to Vermont to visit her, and grandchildren began arriving as well. Their second granddaughter, Layla, was born to Felix and Hanan in 2007, followed by their grandson, Derek in 2011. Nana reveled in a fuller house and summer and holiday visits from the grandkids were always eagerly anticipated by kids and parents alike.

2008 officially heralded in two new arrivals. The first, the Newport Natural business, saw Alicia's infectious smile behind a transformed lunch counter welcoming customers. The second arrival was the Knoll Barn on Derby Pond. Painstakingly moved from near Irasburg, VT and reconstructed on their property, the Knoll Barn became a delight for the grandkids but also a wedding venue. With sweeping views of green fields and Derby Pond, the Barn played host to multiple weddings every year and filled a void for Alicia because she and Frank never had a proper wedding ceremony.

More barns appeared along with grandchildren born to her son Garrett and his wife, Ashton. In 2017, they welcomed granddaughter Ella, and grandson Beckett in 2020. Her sixth and final grandchild, Emmett, was born in 2021. There was a natural symmetry in Alicia's life: three granddaughters, three grandsons, and three barns.

Alicia and Frank's travels continued. In fact, her kids joked that Nana and "Gramps" had a busier social life than people half their age. They visited Florida, Argentina, Tasmania, England, Ireland, and Australia. One trip in India they were in Rajasthan where Frank had been in the Peace Corps. The hotel convinced them to try an amazing experience, an overnight camping trip in the desert like the maharajah himself. They arrived at the start to find two sketchy looking characters more akin to desert warriors than desert luxury hosts. As they set off with their taxi driver shaking his head in disbelief, Alicia calmly explained to one of their "guides" that she and Frank were Americans. "Not good, Alicia!" Frank yelled, "not good!"  When they arrived not at a desert tent palace but a barren spit of sand, Alicia instructed her host captors to prepare the campsite and their meal. Her southern charm worked and although they slept on dirty blankets in a makeshift tent, they survived any harm or ill intent.

When Alicia wasn't traveling or doting on her grandkids she was talking, constantly. People called her all the time from her two sons to her old Jacksonville neighbors, to friends in Canada and Australia. She had two true superpowers, the ability to make friends and to put everyone else ahead of herself. And they came as naturally and effortlessly to her as breathing. She'd make friends at boot camp, holding a plank longer than people thirty years her junior. Or she'd make friends with someone after accidentally backing into their car. No one disliked her. Everyone felt she was their best friend because she was.

When she was diagnosed with a chronic lung disease in 2019, she endured a grueling drug regimen that sapped her energy and her breath. But she never stopped smiling, never gave up on staying connected with friends and family. Even though long conversations could lead to coughing spells she'd insist, "no you just keep talking and I'll listen."  Friends and family gatherings continued, and she never complained or stopped smiling. Even weakened, she attended her granddaughter Sasha's high school graduation in New Jersey in June 2023 and hosted the family for their annual summer gathering, Camp Knoll, in August. On Sunday, September 3, she died as she would have wanted, surrounded by her family. She leaves behind her loving husband, Frank, her two sons, Felix and Garrett and their wives Hanan and Ashton, and of course her darling grandchildren, Sasha, Layla, Derek, Ella, Beckett, and Emmett. As anyone who knew her could attest, to know her was to love her. She was Frank's best friend. To every one of her many friends, she was their best friend. And to every child she ever met, she was everyone's Nana.

In lieu of a funeral service, a celebration of Alicia's life is planned for her birthday in May 2024. Online condolences may be made at curtis-britch.com.