GLENNA SUE KILLIAN MOORE

1930-2021

Glenna Killian Moore passed away in the early hours on Friday, the 15th of January 2021, at her home in Piney Point Village. Progressing heart failure finally ended her life. She was a Memorial Villages resident for 62 years having moved from Baytown with her husband and children. Born in Oklahoma, in 1930, she moved to Texas in 1952 after her husband’s graduation from university.

Her birthplace in Oklahoma was a small western farm community named Delhi, a few miles south of the larger town of Elk City. The dust bowl and great depression marked her first years and these calamities were exacerbated by the death of her mother during Glenna’s second year.

As the youngest of five siblings, she was raised by the combined efforts of sisters, aunts, uncles and grandparents. At the age of six, she was moved to Duncan, Oklahoma to live with her oldest sister who had recently married. Duncan was to be her home until her marriage. She attended the public schools in Duncan, graduating from High School in 1949 as a member of the National Honor Society. In grade school, she met her future husband, Joe Moore, and married in 1949. Her marriage of 71 years was ended by death.

Glenna’s immediate family is comprised of five children born between 1950 and 1959. After the youngest entered grade school, Glenna was able to reorient her life to primarily adult interests. In 1956, her husband had cofounded a computer consulting firm office in Houston. The Moore family moved from Baytown to Houston in 1958. Living in a new community and surrounded with new friends she began to be involved in community activities, new from her past experience. Opportunities for advanced education became available. Her college education had been previously limited to one semester at a Women’s university. Her frustration at this limited exposure to academia, in spite of her formidable intelligence, was to be assuaged by opportunities in Houston. She extended her education by attending courses at the Women’s Institute taught by faculty from Rice and University of Houston. She also began taking leadership roles in women’s groups in St. Francis Episcopal Church. After a few years, she had served as the leader for all of these groups. In the late 1960s, a new facet of her life began which was to a part of her active life during her remaining years. Her husband Joe was named to the Alumni Board of his university, MIT and became further involved in governance of the Institute. Glenna immediately joined him and became a well-known member of the alumni leadership group. She took similar roles with Joe in the President’s Circle of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, The Houston Symphony, and Southwest Research Institute. In further association with her husband’s affairs, she entertained Bonner & Moore clients from all over the world.

Glenna mastered many domestic skills. As a gourmet cook, she joined with a friend to form a catering company, Friends in the Kitchen. For many years, she was active in the Chapel Belle Garden Club, PEO and the Blue Bird Circle. As a skilled seamstress she made her oldest daughter’s wedding dress. Her family holiday celebrations were always elegant and memorable. She developed an interest in sports; tennis, skiing, golf, and sailing. She travelled, with Joe, to many venues around the world to enjoy these sports. She saw the pyramids of Egypt and the Great Wall of China. She explored ancient Mayan ruins and was a guest at the White House. With her literary knowledge and quick wit she and Joe often played a game to first recall a quotation from literature about a place they were visiting.

Her crowning glory as a woman, wife and mother was her support and interest in the affairs of all her descendants. Under her care and guidance, a large family grew. Thirty-seven children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and spouses comprised her beloved family. For many years she led a “Cousin’s Camp” at her lakeside second home on Lake LBJ. She travelled the country and the world maintaining her contact with children and grandchildren, sometimes with Joe and sometimes alone. She remembered all the birthdays, anniversaries and other important dates relating to her descendants without referring to written notes. Her love for her greater family was always expressed as support and encouragement not as suggestions and guidance as to how they should live their lives.

She is survived by her husband, Joe Moore; her daughter, Ellen Moore Miller and her husband Rod, her son, Joe Moore, Jr. and his wife Therese, her son, Randall Moore and his wife Charisse, her son, Michael Moore, and her daughter, Jane Moore Kampschmidt and her husband Bernie. She is also survived by 13 grandchildren and five spouses; as well as eleven great-grandchildren.

In her last days she was given loving and prayerful attention by the clergy of St. Francis Episcopal Church, her home church since 1959. Ms. Jennifer Baker served as her principal caregiver from 2018.

As a girl, Glenna was often called upon to sing. Her favorite song was ‘’Over the Rainbow” from the movie ``Wizard of Oz’’. A few years ago, some High School classmates made a memory book for Glenna. In it many of them recalled her theme song, “Over the Rainbow.”

“Somewhere, over the rainbow, way up high,

Birds fly over the rainbow, why then oh why can’t I?”

As her friends proclaimed, Glenna’s life was truly a flight over the rainbow.

A memorial service is to be conducted at eleven o’clock in the morning on Saturday, the 6th of February, at St. Francis Episcopal Church, 345 Piney Point Road in Houston, where the Rev. Stuart Bates, is to officiate.

Please visit Mrs. Moore’s online memorial tribute at GeoHLewis.com where memories and words of comfort and condolence may be shared electronically with her family.