Melville Lock Moore, Jr.

Melville Lock Moore of Littleton, Colorado passed away peacefully on November 14, 2013. He was 93 years old. Mel was born February 15, 1920 in New York City to Melville Lock Moore, Sr., a Wall Street bond broker, and Margaret Frances Hall Moore of Stamford, CT. He graduated from the Thomas School in Rowayton, CT in 1939 and continued his studies in Fine and Industrial arts at the Silvermine Arts Guild in Norwalk, CT and under private tutelage with Leo F. Dorn and Felicia Doughty Kingsbury, who dubbed him a 'Master of Composition.' While at the Thomas School, Mel placed in the top 50 of 360, 000 high school entrants for an essay submitted to the American Youth Forum Competition of The American Magazine. Upon graduation and due to his academic excellence, the Thomas School offered full scholarship to any one of his siblings, for which his younger sister Louise became the happy recipient. Growing up in Mt. Kisco, New York, Mel's sister Dorothy noted that her brother was prolifically creative and was constantly building things out of wood, hardware, and any other materials he could find. The resulting creations were usually mobile, wheeled go-carts that mimicked sailboats (complete with sails), covered wagons and locomotives. According to Dorothy, he never put his father's tools away, an irony noted by his own daughters who were forbidden ever to touch his tools. During his teens, Mel's family lived at Wilson Point in Rowayton, CT, a community of artistic and interesting neighbors that provided opportunities for bicycling, tennis, fishing and friendships. Mel learned the art of printmaking from next-door neighbor, artist, and Thomas School teacher, Leo F. Dorn. In 1941 Mel was invited along to travel west to California with boyhood friend and Wilson Point neighbor Bill Lynch and his family. On their first stop in Doylestown, PA, the travelers stayed at the home of family friend Marjorie Content who was also a close friend of both Georgia O'Keefe and Alfred Stieglitz. Mel was fascinated and profoundly moved by her collection of artwork and photography. The trip that followed turned out to be a marvelous, frequently retold, adventure that set the stage for Mel's great love affair with the southwest and his own eventual move west. An account of this friendship, the trip west and that of the parallel friendship between Mel's sister, Dorothy, and Bill's future wife, Cookie, is retold in the Lynches' memoir of compiled life stories entitled: Years Into Lives: Pages From Our Family Stories by Violet ""Cookie"" Lynch and William W. Lynch (published by AuthorHouse, 5/24/2013). As Staff Artist for the Stamford Museum in Connecticut in 1941, Mel built models, created dioramas and produced numerous exhibits. One very large diorama demonstrated the development of life on earth including a complete evolutionary history of the flora and fauna from each geologic time period and the relationship between the planets and the sun in the solar system. In addition to his love of working with his hands Mel was an avid outdoorsman. He was written up with high praise in The Norwalk Hour for 'Outstanding Scout Leadership' as a Scoutmaster in 1943. Camping, hiking and fly-fishing were life-long passions of Mel's that began early in life due to summers spent at his family's beloved Bisby Lake home in the Adirondacks. In 1943 Mel headed west again for an instructor position with the Brandes School in Tucson, Arizona, a job and a climate that he relished. He taught arts and crafts, woodshop and recreation and was Assistant to the Director. He continued his artistic pursuits in the vastly different desert landscape. As a member of the Tucson Fine Arts Association and the Tucson Independent Artists' Group, Mel exhibited his work at shows, presented art workshops such as ""So You Can't Draw a Straight Line"" and completed woodworking and graphic art commissions. Mel met and married accomplished pianist and sculptor, Henrietta Robins Eliot, at the first Unitarian church in Tucson in June, 1949 where both were charter members. The Moores moved to Fort Worth, Texas in 1951 where Mel began a 19-year career with the defense contractor Convair (later known as General Dynamics) as a Technical and Illustrations Editor. All three daughters were born in Fort Worth. In Texas, Mel continued his woodworking, oil and watercolor painting, sculpture and printmaking and exhibited his work in juried shows in Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio and Houston and in Denver, Colorado. He was a member of the Dallas-Fort Worth Men of Art Guild, a listed member of the Fort Worth Art Association and had at least one of his paintings (""Aspiration"") included on the exhibition circuit for the Texas Fine Arts Association. Mel won the Junior Chamber of Commerce prize for a large black and white abstract oil painting, ""Awareness"", at the 16th Annual Local Artists Show of the Fort Worth Art Center, juried by art historian, Andrew Carnduff Ritchie, who at the time was director of the Painting and Sculpture Department of the Museum of Modern Art (NYC). The subjects of Moore's artworks ranged from New England seascapes to the southwestern desert and life drawings made along his coast-to-coast car trips to his simple, modern minimalist abstract paintings. Mel read widely on many subjects, but of special interest to him were American, Railroad and Colorado mining history. His exceptional life-long passion for narrow gauge steam locomotives was likely due to his maternal great-grandfather's (Thomas Seavey Hall) invention of the first electromagnetic Railway signaling system in 1869. TS Hall was posthumously inducted into the National Inventor's Hall of Fame in 2007 for this life-saving invention. During his youth Mel chased trains from station to station with his brother, Jack, (John Hollister Moore) and continued this game later with his own young family in tow. Mel created and tinkered with his own HO-scale model railroad (narrow gauge, steam) complete with mountains, rivers and tunnels, a hobby that gave him immense pleasure through the end of his life. Mel loved to read, write and recite poetry, especially that of a favorite poet, Robert Frost. He was an active letter-writer to local newspapers and to his representatives, never shy about expressing his progressive positions on social justice, civil rights and compassion and in favor of sane and thoughtful government. An early retirement allowed Mel to develop another of his interests. In 1972, upon relocation to Littleton, Colorado, he began dealing in antiques, collectibles and books--a pursuit that evolved into a rare and used book business that he aptly named The Prospector. Mel researched his own family history later in life and found some interesting ancestors. A maternal relative, Joseph Seavey Hall, fought at Gettysburg in the Civil War (in the 15th Regiment of the Vermont Infantry), a site Mel was thrilled to be able to visit with his sister Louise. After the war, J.S. Hall's entrepreneurial pursuits included having built the first road up and a resort hotel on Mount Diablo, east of San Francisco Bay, another site he visited with his daughters. Through a paternal grandfather, George W. Moore, Mel found great-grandfather Elias Van Benschoten, a soldier of the American Revolution, through whom a family connection with the Dutch Huguenots was established. It was a great delight to Mel when a group of his former Brandes School students rediscovered and became reacquainted with him in the 1990s. These dear friends continued their contacts with him for the remainder of his life. Mel provided companionship and cared for a dear friend, Joan, for several years and through her hospice to the end of her life. For his kindness and great compassion, she called him a 'Prince of a Man.' Mel was honest to a fault, loyal to the very end and full of compassion for those less fortunate, whatever their differences. He loved his family and friends profoundly and they miss him keenly. His daughters find great comfort in remembering his long and full life and the way in which he carefully surrounded himself with reminders of all those he loved and of his many and diverse interests. He lived as he wished in his own home to the last day, pursued his passions with great zest and relished every adventure. Mel is survived by daughters Sarah Louise Gooch (husband, Thomas), of Ft. Worth, TX; Carolyn Moore McCuan (husband, Don) of Denver, CO; and Amy Lucinda Moore (husband, Gary Greenburg) of San Mateo, CA; grandchildren Kimberly Clemons and Matthew Clemons of Ft. Worth, TX; Simon Gooch of Chattanooga, TN; and Cybill and Cailin Greenburg of San Mateo, CA; great-grandchildren Aaron Mann and Aidan and Grace Clemons of Ft. Worth, TX; dear sister, Mary Louise Moore Saxon of Bethesda, MD; and nieces and nephews Hollister and Dana Knowlton, Laura Moore Rayno, Jennifer Moore Johnson, Catherine Saxon Battersby, Elizabeth Saxon Giles and Ann Victoria Saxon. Mel was pre-deceased by two beloved siblings John Hollister Moore in 1980 and Dorothy Moore Knowlton in 2010; dear cousins Dorothy Peddle and Katherine Peddle Dixon (author of Red Cross Kay), William Phillips Hall (Olympic bobsledder) and Willys M. Monroe, MD; many dear friends; and two precious canine friends, Darshan and Scooter, who provided him companionship, devotion and joy in his later years followed by profound anguish upon their departures. As Mel wrote in verse after the loss of his beloved Scooter, the author repeats to her father, ""Papa"": I Look for You Scooter (I Look for You Papa): I look for you still— In all the places you Might be And I know you Aren't there But I look for you still. by Melville L. Moore, Feb. 24, 2005 Private memorial services will be held in various locations from California, Texas and Colorado to New England. In lieu of flowers the family would be grateful for donations made to the Littleton Omnibus, an organization that allowed Mel to maintain his tightly-held independence until the very end, as it continues to (provide transportation) for many Littleton seniors and disabled adults regardless of their ability to pay. Littleton Omnibus City of Littleton 2255 W. Berry Ave. Littleton Co 80120 Questions and comments are welcome and may be addressed to his daughter, Amy L. Moore, by email at: amy@mid-moddesign.com