Volunteers Of The Month

February, 2008 

Foster Grandparent Program

Senior Companion Program

RSVP

From the Silver Senior Center we present to you...

This month, the honors go to two very special “retired” volunteers.

Clarence and Marie have given service to others as RSVP volunteers for 20 years… 10 years in the state of Michigan and 10 years in Silver City. They have delivered Meals on Wheels (MOW) for the Silver Senior Center, with Clarence driving and Marie making the deliveries. Senior Transportation is another service they both provided for the Silver area. Clarence is considered an angel to many who know him, and while delivering Meals On Wheels, Marie made certain all homebound seniors they visited, had a safe home. Marie served on the Board of Directors for Grant County Senior Services and the Advisory Council Board (ACCSSC) for the volunteer programs. Today they mostly attend the center to help with the up keep, plus the socialization is something they enjoy too. Marie and Clarence are a great team, Marie says,” I’m his memory… he’s my ears.”   

Clarence Moore was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1925. Shortly thereafter he and the family moved to the Upper Peninsula to the Bessemer, Michigan. His dad was a mortician, and at the age of fourteen, after vigorous training, his dad taught Clarence the fine occupation. As time went on he became the next generation embalmer in the Moore family. In northern Michigan he learned to make his own skis, and by the time Clarence turned sixteen, he was driving, not only a car, but also the only ambulance within a two- hundred mile radius. He was kept very busy. 

While in high school he distinguished himself in ROTC. He enlisted in the Army at the age of 17, shortly after at 17 1/2, which was D-day, he was made a Field Sergeant in heavy artillery, with two artillerymen and a radioman under his command. Clarence was very well trained to become a “Forward Observer”. The military trained a very large number of these men because their life expectancy was about two weeks!

Their mission was to go to German cities with an 8 inch Howitzer, and knock out the anti-aircraft guns in preparation for air strikes. These are the cities that the four men and the Howitzers were assigned:  Cologne, Dusseldorf, Essen, Dresden, Heidelberg and Stuttgart. Each time they crossed into Germany, they destroyed the targeted anti-aircraft guns, and then radioed the 8^th Army Air Force in Britain to… “Bring in the bombers!” They then disabled and abandoned the Howitzer.

The team then traveled on foot back to the American lines. On one such trip they were pretty sure they had been spotted, so they hid in a haystack. Full of chicken lice when they arrived at the American lines, they were stripped, bathed, shaved all over their bodies and issued new clothes.

On another trip back they stole a chicken and boiled it in a helmet – no wine! The last trip back landed them in the Battle Of The Bulge. He showed his men how to use the snow, building a wall to keep out the cold wind. He was from the upper peninsula of Michigan; so he knew how to live with snow

A German machine gun emplacement was giving them a lot of grief. Clarence took two hand grenades and told his men (all married mature men) to stay safe in their foxhole and he set out and silenced that machine gun emplacement.  He returned to the foxhole only to find all three of his men dead. They had taken a direct mortar hit! This isn’t easy to get over.

Clarence was en route to the Pacific Theater, when the declaration of peace was being signed.
 

Shortly after he returned to the states, he married his girlfriend Beatrice. From their union they had four children: three girls Cookie, Honorene, Vanessa and a boy Clarence III. However, it was not meant to be, and ended in divorce.

“Here we are in Silver City, a wonderful town, at a party in Tyrone.”

The men recalling there war experiences.  Present were two HAM

radiomen- Morris Fisch and Moe Rudick.  They were known as

Big MO and Little MO.  As Clarence related his story, Moe Rudick hollered...

“I was the guy you were talking to at the 8^th Army Air Force in Britain!”

Clarence was awarded the “Presidential Commendation”, Purple Heart medal, and Good Conduct medals, and was honorably discharged.

Marie Moore was born in New York City, in 1914. A short time later the family moved to New Jersey, Florida, upstate New York and ended up back in midtown Manhattan, New York City. By the time she had graduated from high school, she had attended five different High Schools.

She married Joseph Callahan in 1934.  From this union Marie had one child. Unfortunately her husband was killed during the first month of the war. 

Marie’s second husband Cowles was a sailor, who managed to stay home and help raise their five sons: Richard, William, Wayne, Lloyd and Jack.  As fate would have it Cowles died aboard ship June 6, 1976.

In 1977 Marie was working at the Selfridge Air Force Base. Both Marie and Clarence lived in the same apartment complex. One day he found her mail on the floor and decided to hand deliver it. I guess it was love at first sight, after a long courtship, they decided to marry in 1983.

Their son, Richard, the eldest, lives in Santa Fe. Clarence had been suffering with asthma and Richard directed him to Silver City, where the air is clear and you can almost see forever. Today Marie and Clarence are proud of their 21 grandchildren, and 22 great grandchildren.

Marie’s secret for looking young is her association with positive people.

“Where there is a human being there is an opportunity for kindness.”

                                                                                                                            Seneca