Anne Hollingsworth Thomas Moore

Moore—Anne Hollingsworth Thomas Moore, 89, on January 24, 2019, in Northampton, Mass., after a gradual yearlong decline. Anne was born on August 15, 1929, in Philadelphia, Pa., to Lydia Hollingsworth and Raymond Moore Thomas, and grew up in a house on the edge of the family farm and tree nursery near Valley Forge, Pa. She attended Old Eagle Elementary School, George School, and Swarthmore College, graduating in 1951. After two years at Baxter Labs in Evanston, Ill., she worked as a research assistant at the University of Pennsylvania, hitchhiked across the country, and worked in the weaving studio of George Harndon in Philadelphia. She was cooking for the Friends General Conference Gathering in Cape May, N.J., when she met Tom Moore, who was attending the conference as part of exploring Quakerism.

She married Tom in 1954, and they moved to Lansdowne, Pa., where he was secretary of the local YMCA. In 1957 they moved to Washington, D.C., to co-direct the International Student House, and in 1960 to Lawrence, Kans., where Tom directed the University of Kansas student YMCA. She was a core member of Oread Meeting in Lawrence, collected clothing for and was on the board of American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), and was active with Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) in 1957–2018. She sold UNICEF cards for 17 years; sold pecans for Koinonia, a racially integrated farm community in Americus, Ga.; directed the Volunteer Clearing House, which connected organizations needing volunteers with people seeking to volunteer; supervised VISTA volunteers; was a founding member of the Lawrence Coalition for Peace and Justice; helped organize Breakthrough, a mental health support group; helped found the Lawrence Peace Center; organized Nuclear Freeze activists; and lobbied Senator Bob Dole against the war in Vietnam.

She and Tom moved east to live with and care for her parents in 1983. There she was active with Pendle Hill, AFSC, Friends World Committee for Consultation, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, and Valley Meeting in Wayne, Pa. In 1998, she and Tom moved to the Hickman in West Chester, Pa., where she served on the Building Committee. She became active in West Chester (Pa.) Meeting, joined the Chester County Peace Movement, and was an early supporter of Nonviolent Peaceforce. In 2013 she moved to Northampton, Mass., to be near a son and his family, quickly making new connections with, among many others, Northampton Meeting, the local chapter of AFSC, exercise groups at the Senior Center, and Swarthmore alumni.

She maintained connections with hundreds of people from her school days and from all of the places she had lived. She continued grappling with her own understanding of race and class; with the tension between her pride in her family history and a feeling, perhaps embarrassment, about her unearned privilege; and with how to express her ideals through action, which was important to her. (She wrapped up many conversations with, “Well, this isn’t getting the dishes done.”)

During her last year she gradually pared back her commitments, but continued, as long as she could, walking with her walker from her Hampton Court apartment to several vigils downtown, exercise classes at the Senior Center, and meeting for worship each Sunday. Her paternal grandmother, Grandmother Thomas, had told her family that they had strong blood, and the Hollingsworth family motto was “What cannot be cured must be endured.”

Anne’s husband, Tom Moore, and her daughter, Lydia Anne Moore, died before her. She is survived by two sons, Charles Moore and Howard Moore; two daughters-in-law; four grandchildren; and many cousins, nieces, and nephews.