Ray Nolting

Personal Life

Ray married Mary Taylor English on August 8, 1936, and they lived in Cincinnati, Ohio their entire married life until his passing in 1995.

Professional football players of Ray's era played strictly for the love of the game. His 1940 contract was one of the best in the league at that time, but $200 a game could not support a family. So Ray, like his teammates, had a wide variety of part-time jobs in the off-season. None of which today's star athletes would even consider... construction, retail clerk, machine tool broker, and salesman.

Having tired of the business of football in the 1960s, Ray invested in a tavern and adjacent land on what was the fringe of Cincinnati. Over the years, his business grew and the land value appreciated geometrically. He was able to comfortably retire with Mary at the age of 62. The money he made playing football had nothing to do with his ultimate success. But the attributes that made him a great football player certainly did; hard work, toughness, determination, intelligence, and perseverance.

As a side note, Ray had many other skills besides being a successful businessman, he was a knowledgeable outdoorsman, had an unbelievable green thumb and was able to fix/build almost anything. He was a great cook and Sundays at Mary and Ray's was always a treat.

Ray was always a favorite of the Bears principal owner, Virginia Halas McCaskey, the oldest child of George Halas. A number of times in Ray's later years he attended the annual Chicago Bear's reunions. Ray, along with some of the Monsters of the Midway teammates were regularly invited to watch the game following the reunion in the owner's box compliments of Ms. McCaskey.