Editor’s note: Each year, the Brown County Democrat celebrates some aspect of Brown County history in our Founders Day section, also known as “Yesteryear.” This year — as we’ve done for the past several years — we’re writing about residents who are about 80 or older, who define “Brown County character” in some way.
Shelves and tables in Ruth Moore’s home are filled with family photographs, and each one seems to spark a memory.
But none are as sharp and poignant as the memories of Loren.
“He was just a good guy,” she said with a tiny sigh.
“He never yelled at me. He just always treated me like a lady, really.”
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]For 63 years, Loren and Ruth were a team, whether it was running his plumbing business, raising their family of three girls, serving and visiting with residents at the nursing home, or ministering to young adults at Nashville Christian Church.
“I have no regrets,” Ruth said about choosing him — even if he was from Nashville.
She was from Helmsburg.
“They said, ‘When you get married, don’t marry a fool; don’t marry a boy from Nashville School.’ Well, I did.
“We had the best time. He’s been gone three years. He was just the best and nicest guy I ever did see.”
A lifelong resident of Brown County, Ruth Bond Moore was born at home in Helmsburg in ‘28 — “1928,” she clarifies, with a laugh.
Her family’s home abutted the railroad tracks, not far from the Helmsburg school. She’d walk to and from school every day, and again to and from for lunch. Her parents, Earl and Grace Bond, raised eight children in that house: five boys and three girls. Ruth was No. 5.
Earl Bond was the county’s undertaker, a job his father, Joshua, also had done. The family business was first established in Helmsburg before moving to Nashville. Ruth’s brother, Jack Bond, followed their father into that work. Father and son also served as county coroners.
Ruth graduated from Helmsburg High School in 1946. Loren graduated from Nashville High School in 1943.
They met at a square dance. Ruth had gone to the dance with a boy who was like a brother to her, and that’s where Loren stepped up.
“I got to thinking, ‘He thinks he’s taking me home, but he’s not,’” Ruth said.
“He asked me when’s the next dance, and I lied. I told him I didn’t know. Then he said, how about going to a movie Saturday night? So that was it.”
How did he propose marriage to her?
“I don’t know. How did he?” Ruth thinks, and she turns to her youngest daughter, Mary Beth. “Oh, you weren’t here,” she corrects herself, and the two laugh.
According to Loren’s obituary, he did it with a pledge: “This is no Hollywood romance,” he told Ruth. “This is for life.”
Ruth worked for Eli Lilly in a credit union in Indianapolis for about five years before they married. Loren was serving with the Navy at the time. They wed on Sept. 1, 1951, at the Nashville Christian Church, while Loren was on a 30-day leave. She was 23; he was 26. After serving in World War II, he was called back for the Korean War.
When he returned home, he opened Loren Moore Grocery in downtown Nashville. It burned in January 1954, part of a devastating fire which started in a pool hall and took three buildings with it. Loren later became a volunteer firefighter for Nashville and served for many decades.
After the fire, he hooked up with an uncle in Columbus to learn the plumbing trade.
“And then, the babies started coming,” Ruth said — three daughters within four years. “I thought they were never going to stop.”
Ruth manned the phones for Loren’s plumbing business for decades. She sewed all the clothes her daughters wore — everyday outfits and for special occasions — and volnteered as a 4-H leader and for the Rainbow Girls. She also ran a “Mother’s Day Out” in her home, offering care for young children for the day.
Loren would come home every day for lunch, “so I had to learn to cook,” Ruth said. She didn’t know any of that as a young bride. “I had two sisters. I’d rather wash the dishes than cook.”
Loren also was a fan of home-baked pies, so she taught herself that skill, too.
“He’d come home for lunch and take his dirty shoes off down there and stop by, see what kind of pie I’d made. Then he’d go downstairs … to wash his hands, and he’d go down the stairs singing, “Have I told you lately that I love you?’ And I’d say, ‘Sing it louder!’”
Ruth fondly remembers hosting picnics for the Coffey Hill neighborhood at their home.
The couple was active in their church, Nashville Christian, and mentored a group of other young married couples for 20 years, called the Gospel Lights.
In 2011, as Loren’s health was failing, 26 of those “kids” — who by that time were grandparents themselves — gathered in the Moores’ home to trade tales alongside the couple they’d looked up to for so long.
“How did you manage to have faith all those years?” one of the Gospel Lights asked them at that gathering.
“Oh, I had this one here, that’s all,” Loren answered, patting his bride of six decades on the hand.
When Loren retired, the couple spent years going to Brown County Health & Living Community and visiting with the residents, learning their names and delivering meals to them.
When Loren became one of those residents, “I was down there three times per day,” Ruth said.
Ruth and Loren’s granddaughter, Christie Smith, gives Ruth credit for helping to raise her.
When Smith’s parents divorced, she and her sister, who were 1 and 2 at the time, went to live with their mother in Ruth and Loren’s home. Now, Smith’s children visit the same home, where “Nonnie,” age 91, spends her time knitting washcloths and hats to give to others, and reading her daily devotional and Bible.
“She has dedicated her life to working for others,” Smith said. “She is one of those people who would give you the shirt off her back.”
One of the keepsakes on Ruth’s coffee table of photos is a writing prompt that her great-grandson, Isaac, completed. To the question, “What is your favorite thing to do with Grandma?” he wrote, “Talk with her,” and for “If you could send Grandma on vacation anywhere, where would you send her?” he answered, “To my house.”
“She taught me so many wonderful life lessons — not only tangible ones, like how to cook, but also lessons of the heart,” Smith said. “She set the best example for how to love, how to give and how to serve.
“She is truly a treasure to me and all of Brown County. Surely, everyone who has met her has been touched by her kind spirit.”
[sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”Ruth Bond Moore” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
Born: May 1, 1928, at home in Helmsburg
Spouse: Loren Moore
Children: Marcia Boyd, Marilyn Ayers and Mary Beth Fisher; nine grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren
Siblings: Five brothers, all deceased, and two sisters, Betty Mathis and Susie Poling
Occupations: Eli Lilly credit union employee; stay-at-home mother; volunteer with 4-H, the Rainbow Girls, Nashville Christian Church, Brown County Health & Living Community and other community organizations
Hobbies: Sewing Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls; knitting hats and washcloths
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