Virginia Moore

Virginia Moore (July 11, 1903 – June 11, 1993) was a prominent poet and historian who spent much of her life residing in Scottsville.

Biography

Early life

Moore was born in Omaha, Nebraska on July 11, 1903 to Ethel Daniel (the daughter of a Charlottesville physician) and John Allen Moore (a graduate of the University of Virginia Law School). She was raised as a Virginian and attended the Grenau School for Girls in Gainesville, Georgia, later earning her bachelor's degree in philosophy from Hollins College (where she held the prestigious Hollins Medal and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa) in Roanoke, Virginia in 1923. Moore would later earn her master's degree and Ph.D. in philosophy from Columbia University.

Career

Early in her career, Moore was a free-lance writer based in New York City, where she wrote poetry, articles, and reviews.  She also lectured on literature in schools across the county.  Moore later traveled extensively on five different continents, circumnavigating the globe twice.  At one point, she interviewed the famed Swiss psychologist Carl Jung in Zurich at his invitation due to them both sharing an interest in the Irish poet W. B. Yeats. Moore often spent winters at her second home in Alexandria, Virginia, although her house at Cliffside always remained her primary residence.

While in Scottsville, Moore served as a president of both the Board of the Scottsville Museum Foundation and the Board of the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library (whose name she personally selected to commemorate the long friendship between Thomas Jefferson and James Madison). Additionally, she served on the Albemarle County Library Board and was a member of the Virginia Writer's Club, Virginia Poetry Society, Anthroposophical Society, Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society, and St. Anne's Episcopal Parish. Moore also attended Christ Church in Glendower.

Death

Moore died from cancer at Westmoreland (a nursing home affiliated with Lake Forest Hospital in Lake Forest, Illinois) on June 11, 1993. Her death was reported in the New York Times and Washington Post, as well as several Chicago-area and Virginia papers.

Marriage and family

Moore's first marriage was to the author Louis Untermeyer of New York and Connecticut. Upon their divorce in 1929, she legally changed their son's name to John Fitzallen Moore II. Moore later remarried to John Jefferson Hudgins, who had served as a submariner during World War II.  He retired as a Navy captain and was a Washington attorney, long heading the Ocean Shipping Division of the Department of Agriculture before dying in 1992. Throughout her life, Moore always used her maiden name in correspondence and as her pen name, being known as "Miss Virginia."

At the time of her death, Moore was survived by her son as well as six grandchildren: Robin Brooks Moore of San Jose, California, Sheila Moore Price of Santa Fe, New Mexico, Marjorie Moore Fish, of Cataumet, Massachusetts, Laurel Moore White of Madison, Virginia, Jonathan Michael Moore of Springfield, Virginia (who served as the OSCE Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2015), and Cristopher David Moore of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Moore was also survived by twelve great grandchildren and six children of the next generation.

Publications

• Not Poppy (1926)
• Rising Wind (1928)
• Sweet Water and Bitter (1928)
• Distinguished Women Writers (1934)
• Homer’s Golden Chain (1936)
• Virginia Is a State of Mind (1942)
• Ho for Heaven! Man’s Changing Attitude Toward Dying (1946)
• The Unicorn: William Butler Yeats’ Search for Reality (1954)
• The Whole World, Stranger (1957)
• Scottsville on the James: An Informal History (1969)
• The Life and Eager Death of Emily Brontë: A Biography (1971)
• The Madisons: A Biography (1979)
• The Liberty Bell Papers: An Inquiry into American Values (1980)