Born: 15 August 1891, Minneapolis, Hennepin County, Minnesota Died: 1989, Minneapolis, Hennepin County, Minnesota Burial: St. Mary’s Catholic Cemetery, Minneapolis Religion: Catholic
Father: William Crombie (1848–1922) Born in Amaranth Township, Ontario, Canada; immigrated to the United States in the 1870s; long‑time Minneapolis resident; restaurant proprietor; buried at St. Mary’s Catholic Cemetery.
Mother: Katherine M. (Wagner) Crombie (1870–1953) Born in Coblenz, Germany; immigrated as a child; member of Minneapolis’s German Catholic community; buried at St. Mary’s Catholic Cemetery.
Beatrice was the eldest daughter of this Minneapolis‑based Crombie–Wagner household.
Beatrice grew up in South Minneapolis in a blended German‑Catholic and Scottish‑Canadian family. Her childhood was shaped by:
Minneapolis’s immigrant neighborhoods
St. Mary’s and Holy Rosary parish communities
Her father’s long career in the hospitality and restaurant trade
She appears in Minneapolis census records throughout the 1890s and early 1900s.
Married in Minneapolis in 1911.
This marriage united two long‑established Minneapolis families:
The Crombies, with Canadian and German roots
The Nolans, with Pennsylvania‑Irish Catholic origins
Beatrice and Mathew raised a large family in Minneapolis.
Beatrice and Mathew were the parents of nine children:
Marian Nolan
James “Bud” W. Nolan
William Nolan
Rosemary Nolan
John Matthew Nolan
Patrick Joseph Nolan (Lt., WWII; deceased in service)
Matthew James Nolan
Joseph Patrick Nolan
Catherine “Kalle” Nolan
These children form the core of the modern Minneapolis Nolan line.
Mathew died in 1929, leaving Beatrice a widow with a large family. She continued to raise her children through the Great Depression and remained a central figure in the extended Nolan–Crombie family network for decades.
By the time of her death in 1989, she was:
Survived by multiple children
Grandmother to 34 grandchildren
Great‑grandmother to many more
And even a great‑great‑grandmother, as recorded in her obituary
Her long life spanned nearly a century of Minneapolis history.
Beatrice died in 1989 in Minneapolis at the age of 97. She is buried at St. Mary’s Catholic Cemetery, alongside her husband Mathew, her parents, and many members of the extended Nolan and Crombie families.
Beatrice (Crombie) Nolan (1891–1989) was:
Born and raised in Minneapolis
Daughter of William Crombie and Katherine Wagner
Wife of Mathew J. Nolan
Mother of nine children
A matriarch of the modern Nolan–Crombie line
A lifelong member of Minneapolis’s Catholic community
A witness to nearly 100 years of family and city history
Her life forms a central pillar of your family’s lineage story.