In 1935, Ruth Moore was hired as the live-in as personal assistant to Alice Tisdale Hobart. Hobart survived spinal meningitis in infancy, but was in frail health her whole life, at times living in confined circumstances due to back pain. Moore moved with the Hobarts, first to DC, then to Berkeley, California.
Moore was the author of 14 novels, three books of poems, and co-author (with Eleanor Mayo) of a collection of short fiction, published posthumously. The setting for her work is Maine, where she grew up and where she returned later in adulthood, and she is remembered today primarily as a “regional” writer. Her second novel, Spoonhandle (1946), is perhaps her best-known work; it was listed on The New York Times bestseller list for 14 weeks.
In addition to her work for Hobart, Moore served as Assistant Campaign Manager with the NAACP, working directly with James Weldon Johnson, and later as a staff writer for Reader’s Digest. Moore’s books include the novels The Weir (1943), Candlemas Bay (1950), A Walk Down Maine Street (1960), and Sarah Walked Over the Mountain (1979). Her poetry books are Cold as a Dog and the Wind Northeast (1958), Time’s Web (1972), and The Tired Apple Tree (1990). Her correspondence was published posthumously, as was her collection of short fiction, When Foley Craddock Tore Off My Grandfather’s Thumb (2004), which includes stories by both Moore and her lover Eleanor Mayo, who lived together for 49 years, until the end of Moore’s life.
The Homes
Ruth Moore
3031 Sedgwick St. NW
Located in Van Ness neighborhood, Northwest- West of Rock Creek