Elva Gertrude (Street) Moore (1899 - 2003)

Gertrude, Gertie, Trudy these have all been her nicknames. She grayed early and her life was always interesting to us, her grandchildren. In my family, she was "the grandma with the white hair" to distinguish her from "the grandma with the red car" (Evans Stanley). She taped many of her stories in 1988, and granddaughter Sandra Jean "Sandy" Moore made copies for the family. A few of those stories are condensed here.

When we visited Canada with her in 1994, she heard a nickname she had forgotten about, "Dookie". It was a name she had when she was little and everyone, but her friend Dora Grey McAlister had stopped using when she grew up. This reminded her of the nick name her Grandpa Stinson used "Gitchy". She had no idea when that nickname came from. She remembered how she used to sleep walk. Her grandma, wearing a white nightgown, would come to get her and she would wake up screaming "bloody murder". Her dad seemed to always be the one to take care of her. They would go to the kitchen for bread and sugar and a glass of milk. When she was about 4 and a half, the family added on to the old farmhouse, putting a full basement under it. The men raised the house up gradually, first one side then the other. She and Helen tied a string to a baby buggy containing their brother Joe, and would let him roll down hill, then pull him back up to let him roll down again. This was also the first time she saw her father without a moustache, he shaved it so he could hold nails in his mouth while doing lathe work. Grandma often held her sewing pins in her mouth. Grandma began school at five years, a year early since there was no kindergarten, going with her sister Helen. They attended Orford #2, a brick one room school most of the time. It was still standing in 1991. Her Dad did not approve of how the teacher there conducted himself and for awhile they rode 3 miles by buggy to Howard School while waiting on the petition to have him removed. Sometimes there were up to 7 coming home, as they brought, Cecil Lamson, Ships, and Cameron girls. The family lived in Ridgetown for three years, and this is where Gertrude attended high school. Then she attended one year at Chatham Business College. The family had returned to the farm, so she rented a room from George and Etta Scarlett. They were family friends and Etta was the aunt of her future husband, Orlo Harry Moore. Before moving to Chatham the Scarletts had lived on the farm behind the Streets. One of Gertrude's roommates at the Scarletts was Myrtle "Goldie" Golden. Gertrude and Goldie always called George Scarlett "Dad". Goldie loved music and one day asked her to pick up the latest song while she was downtown. The song she bought was "Moonlight Bay". During WWI, she wrote to eight boys overseas. She learned how to knit making socks to send to them. One of them was Stanley Hetherington, another of our relatives. A few remembrances of their letters are given under his name (p.).

Grandma loved to go buggy riding. If you wanted to go buggy riding on Sunday night, you had to go to the Baptist church as the Methodist services were in the afternoon. If you were late getting home, you drove real slow, as everyone knew the peculiar squeak of each buggy's wheels. You hoped that if you went slow enough, no one would notice. In 1992, an old family friend, Letha Irvine recounted a wild buggy ride she had with grandma. Letha, her future husband, Clayton Irvine, Ina Ship and Gertrude were out for a ride. When they turned, the buggy dumped them all. Clayton took out after the horses while the girls picked themselves up from the dust. No one was hurt and they had a good laugh afterwards. On Sept. 8, 1925 she married Orlo Harry Moore in the parlor of her parents' farmhouse. Harry was an auditor for the rural telephone companies. They moved frequently often without advance notice. Harry would go on ahead and Grandma would follow with the children: Chicago, St. Louis, Topeka, Chicago, Emmettsburg, Rockford, Topeka. In Chicago they lived in a converted garage (Ted remembers it as a "tar paper shack") without running water. Grandma went to the nearest fire hydrant and (per Ted) "stole" water, whenever the rainwater she had caught ran out. Another time they arrived late in the evening only to find the apartment infested with bedbugs. To protect themselves and their belongings, they put everything on tables whose legs had been placed in bottle caps of kerosene. Topeka was their seventh house. Most summers were spent in Canada. Grandma stayed on the Street farm with the younger children, Ted often visiting over to the Moore farm to help out. May 14, 1940 she filed for divorce in Topeka, Shawnee County, Kansas. The divorce was granted Nov. 1940. Gertrude went to work to support herself and her children. She worked at Berkson's in ladies' ready to wear doing alterations, then Pelter's as a clerk, then Crosby's, then at the State Board of Cosmetology. In 1951 she went to work for Blue Cross, Blue Shield. She retired Sept. 30, 1964. She was an active volunteer at the Topeka State Hospital both before and after her retirement. She continues to be active at Loman United Methodist. I called her up in June 1994 saying that I had tried to call her after a storm the week before. She replied that she and a neighbor had waited until the storm passed through, then, gone to visit some friends at the nursing home. The lights there were out for the first hour of their visit, but they had a nice chat and the lights come on before they left.

Written by granddaughter, Joyce E. Hodges