Edith Eileen Hamilton

"My mother, Edith, finished high school in Langdon in the spring of 1920. She had some talent as a pianist, and in her youth she used to play the musical accompaniment for the silent movies at Langdon's Roxy Theater. She attended St Catherine's College in St Paul, and finished her education to be a teacher at the North Dakota Teachers College in Minot. She taught for a time at the North Dakota School for the Deaf, and had just been accepted for a teacher's position in the State of Washington when she met my dad, Austin Moore. That cancelled the move to the west coast, and she did not have other employment until 1948. The Austin C Moores made their home in Fargo until the summer 1938, when Burroughs transferred Austin to its Minneapolis office. We lived there until another transfer to Detroit took place in February 1946.

"About 1948, Edith got back into the job market and worked as a sales person at J. L. Hudson Department Store in Detroit. By chance she helped a deaf person who was shopping at Hudson's, since she had earlier training in sign language. The word spread, and soon she was communicating with many persons from the deaf community, who stopped by for help, or just to visit. She had extremely good social skills, in my opinion, as well as many other good qualities.

"After Edith and Austin were both retired in the 1960's they pulled up stakes and travelled around the western part of the country pulling an Airstream trailer. Eventually they decided to make their home in what was then a small town just getting started - Lake Havasu City, AZ. They had a shell of a house erected by a contractor, and Austin built the rest of the three bedroom house. However, they apparenly had not realized how hot it can get in the Mojave Desert. I think Edith was particularly distressed by the summers. So in the early 1970's they scouted out a better climate in Sedona, AZ about 40 miles south of Flagstaff, with an elevation of about 4,500 feet. The same process was repeated, with a contractor starting the house and Austin doing the finishing work. He was a very handy person, and enjoyed relatively good health into his early 90's. Consequently he was doing most of the the maintenance, including working on the roof while in his late 80's."⁶