Ellen Moore

Ellen Moore, Bastrop woman-about town, newspaper columnist, world traveler, animal lover, ardent sports fan and art connoisseur, died on Monday, March 24. She was 69. Her funeral will take place at 4 p.m. Monday, April 14, at Calvary Episcopal Church in Bastrop. “There weren’t too many lives in Bastrop that she, along with her husband Bob, haven’t touched,” said Janice Butler, who worked with Ellen at the Bastrop Advertiser beginning in the late 1980s through the mid-2000s.Ellen’s much-loved column at the newspaper, “Downtown and Around,” chronicled in sparkling detail the comings and goings of her neighbors and other local Bastrop folks. People sought her out, by phone, postcard and in person, to tell her the news that their relatives had come from distant towns to visit, or that they had had a marvelous time at their ladies’ book club. Ellen made it her business to find out when babies had been born, where retirement parties had been held, and who had showed up at an invalid’s door with a home-cooked meal. Her last column for the paper went to press in 2009.Ellen was easy to spot as she strolled the downtown streets of Bastrop, seeking out news tips and often stopping in at Lock Drugs to chat with acquaintances in front of the store’s old fashioned soda fountain counter.She was Texas-tall, close but not quite 6 feet in her tennis shoes, with no-nonsense short blonde hair that never really went gray, and smooth skin that never really wrinkled. She loved to wear colorful, blousy silk shirts, dangling earrings, big rings and jingling bracelets. She had large, intelligent eyes that shone behind wire-framed glasses, and a brilliant, flashing smile that felt like a gift whenever she bestowed it — which was often. But her scowl was just as off-putting as her smile was magnanimous. People usually knew where they stood with Ellen Moore.She told stories that never stopped — tales that revealed her sometimes reckless sense of adventure along with her pedigreed upbringing.Ellen was born on March 23, 1945, in the tiny town of Deport, in northeast Texas, the daughter of the late Helen and John Moore.But from the start, her life extended beyond the borders of her small community. Her father’s brother, "Tex" (Maurice) Moore, had married "Beth" (Elisabeth) Luce Moore, the sister of Time Magazine founder Henry Luce — known as "Uncle Harry" to Ellen and her cousins. Tex Moore joined the distinguished Cravath law firm, of which he became senior partner for many years; in 1944, the firm became known as Cravath, Swaine & Moore. Ellen and her family traveled to the East Coast frequently, to spend a white Christmas or cool, sunny Easter with her aunt, uncle and cousins at their sprawling New York apartment on Park Avenue. In the summer, they visited Tex and Beth's country house, on a rolling hillside in Weston, Connecticut. Trips to the Larchmont, New York house of Allene Moore Sharbough, the sister of Ellen's father, also took place throughout her childhood. When visiting the Sharboughs, Ellen grew to admire her older cousin Joan's classical piano prowess and savage left-handed tennis game.In those milieus, Ellen’s encounters were sometimes surprising. She loved to tell the story of the time she was introduced to Richard Nixon, who proclaimed to everyone within earshot that he had already met and knew Ellen well.“'I practically raised that child — she sat on my knee,'" Ellen recalled Nixon as saying. “But I’d never seen him before in my life.”When she was 15, she moved to Austin to attend St. Stephens Episcopal School as a boarder. At the school, she made her name as a formidable basketball player.“She was a basketball star at Deport High School, before she went to St. Stephens,” said her brother John Moore, who now lives in Sedona, Arizona. “She was hot stuff.”At St. Stephens, she and classmate Julia Cauthorn, developed what would become a lifelong friendship. After graduation, the two attended Wellesley College, in Massachusetts — the place Ellen received an Ivy League education, but where her hoop dreams ended.“Our first week at Wellesley, we went to P.E. together to play basketball again,” Julia said. “The minute Ellen made one of her classic jump shots with me guarding her, the teacher started yelling at us — ‘Ladies’ basketball is NOT a contact sport.’”Cauthorn added that she and Ellen immediately gave up basketball, and soon joined a group of rowers on Lake Waban.“Evidently, crew was where the amazons took their physical exercise,” she said.After graduating from Wellesley with a degree in English in 1967, Ellen lived in New York and worked as an editorial assistant at Glamour Magazine. During those days, and throughout her life, she spent more time in New York City and Weston with her beloved Auntie Beth and Uncle Tex and their many friends and acquaintances. These long leisurely days might involve chatting with Justice John Marshall Harlan II of the Supreme Court, relaxing at a late lunch after tennis or listening to "Dick" (Richard) Rodgers trying out a new tune on the family piano after dinner. And if across-the-road neighbor "Bob" (Robert) Redford were to drop in unannounced for a cool drink on the porch on a warm afternoon, Ellen might have been delighted, but not surprised.A grand world tour, taken with her aunt in the late 1960s or early 1970s as part of Beth’s philanthropic work with the YWCA, was a fantastic voyage that took Ellen to Kabul, Dehli and even to Taiwan, where she met and had tea with Madame Chang Kai-Shek.But Texas soon beckoned Ellen to come home, and she left New York to move back to Austin. Her trip took some time, though, as she meandered across the country, reveling in hippie-era pleasures typical to the times with friends who shared the ride in her Volkswagen van.Once home, she began to work at the Austin Library. In 1978, she married "Bob" (Robert) Hoover, a fluent speaker of sign language who was a teacher of the deaf.After moving to Bastrop, the pair had an active social life, and filled their house with a menagerie of dogs and cats. Even casual friends remember some of the dogs’ and cats’ names — Abigail, Winston, Maggie, Starbaby, J. Edgar — and how Ellen and Bob doted on each of them.Her later life was filled with her work at the newspaper, membership in several clubs and groups, her service as a board member for the Bastrop Public Library for many years, and frequent travel. For many years, she spent each Thanksgiving with her aunt in Washington, D.C., and every summer she jetted to New York to watch the Wimbledon tennis tournament with her favorite cousin Michael Moore, Beth’s son. She and her husband shared a love of sports, and both avidly watched basketball and football games. For many years, they had season tickets to Lady Longhorns basketball games.Wherever she went, she visited museums, slowly walking through the galleries, reciting a roll call of the names of favorite artists in her deep, melodious Texas accent: Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne, Seurat, Monet, Matisse.” She lingered longest over the boldly colorful Fauves, calling out more names there too, in wonder: Derain, Dufy, Vlaminck, Braque and on to Picasso.She is survived by all of her favorite paintings, millions of new fans of women’s basketball, her husband, Bob, her brother John and sister-in-law Suzanne, her aunt Lou Shepherd, several cousins, her dog Abigail and cat Starbaby, and too many friends to name.