Moore, Ruth

Ruth Moore—author, poet, great story teller, and Tremont native—was well known in the national literary world of the mid-20th century. Her novels were often on the New York Times best seller list and her writing has been compared to the likes of William Faulkner.Moore was born July 21, 1903, at Gotts Island (pop. place) on Great Gott Island in Tremont, Maine. She was proud to be a direct descendant of Daniel Gott, Jr., whose family had settled on the island in 1789. Philip Moore, her father, was a fisherman and maintained a herring weir in the island’s pool; he and Ruth Moore’s mother, Lovina Moore (Joyce), ran the island store and post office. Moore attended the island elementary school and Ellsworth high school, and graduated in 1925 from New York State College for Teachers in Albany.Summer residents living at Gotts Island during Moore’s youth had a lasting effect on her. The Holmes, Davidson, and Ovington families introduced Moore to literature, encouraged her to attend college, and guided her to private secretarial/assistant jobs with prominent New Yorkers. After teaching one year following college,  she decided teaching was not her calling and moved to Greenwich Village in New York City where she worked at various secretarial jobs. Moore was secretary to Mary White Ovington, one of the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She also worked for the NAACP reporting directly to James Weldon Johnson, author of God's Trombones. From 1932 to '35 she was private secretary to Dr. John Haynes Holmes, a liberal minister.In 1936 she became private secretary and assistant to Alice Tisdale Hobart, author of Oil for the Lamps of China. This job took her to Washington, D.C. and later California, where she also managed a fruit ranch for the Hobart family. In 1940 she was introduced to Eleanor Mayo by her sister Esther Moore. Mayo returned to California with Moore where they lived together. After returning to New York, Moore worked at the Reader’s Digest where, as assistant editor, she condensed other people’s books.Moore's first novel, The Weir, was published in 1943. Her second, Spoonhandle (1946) was made into a movie, "Deep Waters," by 20th Century Fox. Moore was hired as screen writer but quit when the book’s story was drastically changed. The proceeds from selling the book, however, enabled Ruth Moore and her life partner Eleanor Mayo to buy property in the village of Bass Harbor on Mount Desert Island, and build a home where they lived out the remainder of their lives. Mayo died in 1981.Moore published 12 more novels and three books of poetry. At her death in 1989, she left behind a single sheet in her typewriter with a single line: “I have seen horizons…..”