Clarence Moore

Clarence Sawyer Moore
Born	August 4, 1866 Kerkimer, New York
Died	February 11, 1913 Jersey City, New Jersey
Spouse(s)	Ella Maria Bertholf

Clarence Sawyer Moore (August 4, 1866 - February 11, 1913) was the only son of a relatively major engineer in the US Navy with service back to the Civil War. After being a student on the east coast he gained a job working some years as a draughtsman at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard near San Francisco, California from 1888 to 1895 where he was also visible in society. He and his kin moved back to the east coast where his sisters married naval officers and Clarence became a teacher usually of vocational/manual arts. In 1902 he married Maria Bertholf and their first child was born in 1904. During a sojourn in Europe Clarence came in contact with the Bahá'í Faith in Paris, undertook a pilgrimage to see ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and the family returned to America in November 1906. From 1907 he began to give talks about the life of the indigenous Samoans and returned to teaching in the public schools. From 1911 he worked with then Unitarian Universalist minister Howard Colby Ives on some social improvement initiatives, became a connection for Ives with the Bahá'í Faith and both men interacted with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.

In late January, 1913, Clarence suffered a paralyzing stroke from which he did not recover. He died February 11, 1913. Marie and the three daughters remained in the Jersey City Bahá'í community some years and from circa 1920 in the New York city community where Marie and daughter Emilie went on to serve the Faith with distinction. Howard Colby Ives converted to the Faith and became a promulgating homefront pioneer of the religion to many communities and wrote the well known autobiographical account especially of his encounter with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Portals to Freedom.

Born and raised

On his father's side Clarence Sawyer Moore has been counted a descendent of Dwights from New Haven, Massachusetts, and from the Moores of Windsor, Connecticut, both with dates back to the 1600s in America. Clarence's father, John W. Moore, against his father's background as a lawyer, served in the American military and specifically in the navy from 1853, introduced some ideas of camouflage and using metal cables to protect ships and other engineering advances to naval warfare as well as serving on two warships. He was a naval engineer participating in the development of the iron-clad ships during the Civil War and eventually rising to the position of fleet engineer working for admirals. Clarence was born August 4, 1866, after the death of his paternal grandfather. His mother was Emily Sawyer, whose father was Benjamin Mooers, and Clarence was born, as the second child of the family, in Kerkimer, New York. Clarence attended school by 1880, and the family had four people living with them, possibly servants, in Champlain, New York. From 1882 through 1888 Clarence was a student in the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn.

From 1888 to 1895 Clarence was a draughtsman, who would implement the decisions of and filling out the "blueprints" for the engineer and shipwright, at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard (MINSY) near San Francisco, California, where his father was stationed from 1890. As the first and only Naval base of the US on the west coast at the time, the events of the catastrophe in Samoa in the South Pacific would have been high in the minds of the personnel. During a standoff between German and American warships and a British observer, all but one of the seven ships were destroyed by a hurricane and most of the seamen died. A memorial marker, and a badly bent propeller of one of the ships, was returned to the Shipyard. This seems to have affected Clarence and decades later he would repeatedly give public lectures on the life of the natives of Samoa though he never visited there. At least one summary of his presentation shows a sympathy toward the natives against the colonial powers which then included America. Also visible at the time of his work in the Shipyard was Clarence's membership in the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States. Clarence and family were also visible in newspaper coverage of several naval-related events. In April 1890 Clarence and two sisters attended festivities of the arrival of the new flag-ship, the USS Charleston in San Francisco Bay. In August the Moore family turned out for a musicale held at the Shipyard, and in January 1892 Clarence and a kin vacationed in Santa Barbara. Clarence may have been part of theatrical carnival in Los Angeles in January 1894 with one of the booth costume themes being Roman gods and goddesses.

His father retired from the Navy as a Commodore in 1894. In 1895 Clarence attended Stanford University for one year, and then 1896-7 he was a student at a Sloyd School in Boston, a school that emphasized hand crafts from woodworking to sewing.

New England, married and the Bahá'í Faith

For the 1897-8 school year Clarence was a teacher of "manual training", a precursor of vocational training, at a private school in Arlington Heights, Massachusetts, perhaps the Arlington Catholic High School, and working over in the Andover Guild, a site of pooled hand craft service to the community, in Andover. For 1898-99 he was a student at the Teachers College, Columbia University, and also worked as a teacher in Stamford, Connecticut, and at a private school in New York, probably the Ethical Culture Fieldston School.

For 1899 through 1902 he was a teacher in the Tome School in Port Deposit, Maryland and at The Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania though the years at each are not known. In 1899 Clarence's elder sister Emily Louisa Sawyer Moore married, for whom Clarence was the best man, quickly followed by his younger sister Emily Sawyer Moore in 1900 for whom Clarence served as an usher. Both marriages were socially prominent engagements and both marriages were to naval officers.

On June 25, 1902, Clarence married Ella Maria Bertholf, born in Hackensack, New Jersey, March 3, 1878. Her parents were John J. Bertholf and Annie Frances Price (Bertholf). Clarence and Marie's first child, Rosalie, was born about 1904 at Lake George, New York. It was after this that we have the first connection with the Bahá'í Faith. We have no source about Clarence’s departure from the example and training work with his father into teaching, nor about his attraction to the religion per se. There may have been some identification with the peaceable attitude and disconnection from western civilization among the Samoans, and equality of women and men in their society, as understood by Clarence, and or the society position of the family or some other factor turned him in another direction. But circa 1905 Clarence was part of the early group of Bahá'ís in Paris. The early Paris community was famous later for attracting people without previous knowledge of the religion. It was, of course, started by May Maxwell but Laura Clifford Barney, later Laura Barney Dreyfus, was also a major presence. Other people known there around then are Agnes Alexander, Thomas Breakwell, Hippolyte Dreyfus, Juliet Thompson, Marion Jack, Sydney Sprague, Lady Blomfield, and Horace Holley. And there were others - pictures of the 1905-ish community show more than a dozen and sometimes two dozen people. It is also reported Clarence made a pilgrimage to Akka to see ‘Abdu’l-Bahá while He was still in relative isolation. To complement this report, there is a another, of a new western believer making pilgrimage around this time despite many opportunities for opposition to completing the trek. But astonishing the Bahá'ís there, this unannounced pilgrim met with `Abdu’l-Baha for an hour and was given a carriage ride to various Bahá'í Holy Places by a person with a tough reputation amidst these difficult times with a warning they should not be found out under any circumstances. He seems to have planned to visit only on the one day and departed for Europe the same night. It is conceivable that Clarence’s own history as a navy man and or his father’s position may have played a role in gaining access when others could not.

We have no record of when the Moores left the US or their passport applications, but there is a record of their return from Europe November 3, 1906, on the SS Kaiserin Auguste Victoria, at the time the biggest passenger ship on the seas, which usually traveled back and forth to Hamburg, Germany.

It is possible the family were vacationing after their first child in Europe on his father’s support (his own income was near $30k/yr. in 2019 dollars) encountered the Faith in Paris, went on pilgrimage alone because of the difficulties, returned, and the family toured more of Europe before returning home. Or it could be another scenario.

Regardless, the Moore's second child, Emilie Moore, was born about 1907 in Jersey City, New Jersey.

New York and New Jersey

From the fall of 1907 Clarence was a teacher in various New Jersey schools and often contributed a public lecture among the many that schools hosted. All his talks were about “life in Samoa” and some also dwelt on a hurricane and shipwrecks but it isn’t as clear if the hurricane and shipwrecks were really about the Samoan incident though it easily could have been. These talks extended into the spring of 1908. There is a report the family moved to the west coast but there’s no evidence of it. Instead the family, still with two daughters, shows up in Newton, Maine, in 1910, with a young Hungarian servant living on Webster St. Then they were back in the NY/Jersey area from the fall of 1911 when Clarence joined with Howard Colby Ives in founding a non-denominational “Brotherhood Church” (no building) in Jersey City, New Jersey, and was a conduit of contact for Ives and the Bahá'ís. Ives remembers and comments on Clarence’s ill health including “blinding headaches” as well as describing his impression of Clarence's character: “His nature was one of the humblest and sweetest I have ever known.” Clarence asked Ives for some aid understanding the Bahá'í Faith and shared his notes on the religion, following which Ives received an unsolicited invitation to his first Bahá'í meeting. Along into 1912 Clarence continued to gives talks on the Samoan natives, and also joined in Ives Golden Rule Fraternity co-op. Clarence (and or his family) are said to have met `Abdu’l-Bahá in New York but the dates are not clear. Almost certainly he/they were present at `Abdu’l-Baha’s talk before the Brotherhood Church in May 1912. He also wrote a letter to the editor in defense of Swami Abhedananda appearing at another venue in January, 1913, - not the Brotherhood Church where he appeared in the previous December, after `Abdu’l-Bahá.

By now the Moores had three daughters.

Sudden death

In late January 1913 Clarence went to work at his school like normal and suffered a severe paralyzing stroke early in the morning. After about two week's care including being hospitalized, he died February 10 and was buried in his parent’s gravesite in Bolton, New York. His father followed Clarence in March and his mother lived to 1916. Though they shared the gravesite, obituaries for both men never mention the other.

Continuing Moores

Around the time Clarence died Marie took training and became a teacher at the Ethical Culture School specializing in children that required special developmental assistance.

As youth all three daughters were in the Bahá'í community. The 1919 Jersey City community included Marie Moore and three daughters. but Marie and Emilie took up specific service in the Faith especially with the New York Assembly and its archives and with the national editorial committee and the publishing of Bahá'í World volumes and other works. The elder daughter Rosalie Moore married September 8, 1931 in Manhattan, and the younger daughter Emilie Moore married A. K. Kalantar September 21, 1931 in Manhattan.

Marie died in June 5, 1939. A memorial service was held at the Bahá'í Center and welcomed associates from the School for the Society of Ethical Culture and shared a message from the Guardian.