She crocheted more than 100 prayer shawls for the church and crochets about 60 winter hats a year, using leftover yarn from the knitting group.
“I’ve got to keep my hands busy,” said Moore, who will turn 101 at the end of July. “I feel like it’s worthwhile, and I enjoy it. … I enjoy mixing colors.”
After 28 years at Canterbury Court, Moore moved from her apartment earlier this year to live with her daughter, Carol Hosey, in Springboro, where they share the house with three Welsh corgis, including two rescues.
“Everybody that I knew and was friendly with has died and the new people are my kids’ age,” Moore said.
She lived independently at Canterbury Court, and maintains her independence at her daughter’s home, making her own breakfast and lunch and sharing household chores.
Hosey cooks dinner, and the pair enjoy playing games and shopping together.
“She’s more like a sister to me than a daughter,” Moore said.
Nancy Downey, a longtime member of St. Paul’s in Oakwood, nominated Moore as a Dayton Daily News Community Gem.
“She’s just a wonderful person, very giving,” said Downey of Washington Twp. “She takes so much time to crochet the hats for homeless people or people who are less fortunate.”
Downey met Moore seven years ago when she joined the knitting group ministry at Canterbury Court, where she said they grew close and that she also would visit her or take her to doctor’s appointments when her daughter couldn’t.
Early this year, more than 50 of Moore’s hats were donated to the Dakota Center, a community service center in Dayton.
“When one woman received a hat for each of her kids she was so appreciative that she started crying,” Downey said.
Credit: Jen Balduf
Credit: Jen Balduf
Moore grew up in the small southeastern Ohio town of Beallsville in Monroe County.
In May 1942 she was a student at Marietta Business College when recruiters from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base were looking for typists.
“I got recruited,” she said. “That’s how I came to Dayton.”
They offered three months of training in military shorthand while paying a typist salary. If successful, she could become a stenographer, but if not she would still have a job as a typist.
“It was a win-win,” said Moore, who was rated a stenographer after the training.
“I was such a fast typist,” she said. “I was assigned to an officer.”
She met her husband, Henry Matlock, when she agreed to go on group dates with the good friend of her landlady’s two nephews, who both had girlfriends.
They married in November 1943 and after World War II ended they moved to Newark, Ohio. Tragedy struck when Matlock died in a crash in 1955 when her daughter was 7 and her son, James, was only a year old.
She later returned to the Dayton area after her former mother-in-law played matchmaker and introduced her to the man who became her second husband, though he also is now deceased.
Moore lived in Moraine and Kettering and for more than 15 years worked as a real estate agent for Century 21 before retiring from her second career.
Her family now includes two grandchildren, twin great-grandchildren and a great-great granddaughter, all living between Vandalia and Northern Kentucky.
Throughout her life, Moore has been up for adventure and is quite the traveler, visiting 49 states.
“She’s made it everywhere but Hawaii,” Hosey said.
There are no plans yet for her 101st birthday, but she had a big party for her 100th with more than 45 family and friends in addition to West Carrollton Mayor Rick Barnhart.
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