Oolah Moore

MARION, VIRGINIA: OOLAH MOORE, AGE 86: It is a long way from Bear Creek to the "Pearly Gates" with a lot of rough road in between, but Oolah Mae Bales Moore has finally made it. The family circle that has been broken for so long is now complete as she joins the rest of Emmett Harlow Bales' children at the family table. It is hard to tell them all apart without a program, but Audrey, Thelma, Alma, Leon, Elmer, Walter, Gray, Sherman, and Dean have always kept a place set for her. Oolah was the child bride of Charlie Moore, who left for WWII soon after their wedding. Only someone from Bear Creek could understand that Oolah married Charlie at age 15 "because he had a car." When he returned almost four years later, he was a man changed by the atrocities of war--just as are our brave men and women returning today. Despite that, Oolah spent the next 50 years making the best of any situation in which she found herself. If anyone ever gave "their last full measure of devotion", it was Oolah in her relationships with her children, Bobby, Dickey and Barbara, Barry, Teri and Mark, her grand children, Kasey and Paul, Douglas, Stacey and Nathan, Matt and Sarah, Miles, Brandon and Bethany, and finally her great-grandchildren, Katey Grace, Ashton, Addison, Elizabeth, Benjamin, and Sarah. Although her offspring were far from perfect, you would never have convinced Oolah. Her greatest legacy will be the fact that all of her relatives, her in-laws, her outlaws, her grandchildren, her great-grandchildren, her friends and acquaintances and especially her "angels" at Morningside Assisted Living and Odyssey Hospice are better people for having known her. Funeral service will be held Saturday, May 4, 2013 at 3:00 pm at Seaver-Brown Funeral Service and Crematory, which is serving the Moore Family. Burial will follow at Rose Lawn Cemetery. The family will receive family and friends from 1:30 pm until the time of the service. Expressions of sympathy may be made to the family at www.seaverbrown.com. As is totally characteristic of her, Oolah always said that if you are going give her flowers, give them to her while she is alive so that she can enjoy them. In lieu of flowers, please make a contribution in her memory to First United Methodist Church in Marion, Virginia. When God calls for "Oolah" to come and sit at his right hand, there will be only one person with that name--and that is as it should be.