Margaret V. Moore

“To die, to sleep. To sleep, perchance to dream.”

She was brilliant, quick-witted, and cheeky: an English teacher, hiker, and bridge player with a talent for listening carefully and giving good advice. She loved a good family discussion and was the rock that held her family together. And once you met her, you did not forget her!

Meg was born Margaret Vera Darvell in the United Kingdom during the Depression years.  She met and married Charles H. Moore, a U.S. serviceman who was stationed in England, then moved with him to the U.S. After the birth of their two sons (10 years apart), she started taking college courses. It was no small feat being both a mother and student at the same time, especially during the years when her husband was stationed overseas. But she persevered, and in 1968 she received her B.A. degree in English from Vermont’s Castleton College.

After a 25-year career (1970-1995) as an English teacher at Goffstown High School, where she especially loved teaching Shakespeare, Meg focused on new challenges, starting with climbing all the 4,000-foot mountains in New England in both summer and winter. She also went on numerous hiking trips in the U.S. and abroad, took up circling dancing, attended folk concerts, volunteered to teach English to refugees, read to patients at hospice centers, and started playing competitive bridge. (To the family’s great surprise in her retirement she also learned some colorful language and used it to shock us all!)

She will be remembered as “Meg” and “Great Meg” by her son Rob, her sister-in-law Carole Darvell, her grandchildren Josh and Ashley, and her great-grandson William. She was predeceased by her son Alan, her sister Eileen, and her brother Bruce.

On Monday, August 1, 2022 we will celebrate the life of a woman who lived her almost-86 years to the absolute fullest. Information regarding time and location will be announced at a later date. As many of us know, Meg was very frugal, so please do not send flowers. But if you wish to remember her in some way, The Nature Conservancy of Arlington, Virginia is an organization that was near and dear to her heart.

“There’s rosemary: that’s for remembrance. And there’s pansies: that’s for thoughts.”