A Goldfield High School Teacher – by John Rudderow and Deana Glatz
A. RUSSELL MOORE 1908 Joshua Palm
Arthur Russell Moore. Listed among the teachers in the first edition of the Goldfield High School publication, the Joshua Palm, Thanksgiving, 1908, along with a fellow Nebraskan classmate, Laura Amanda White, was A. Russell Moore, University of Nebraska, 1904, (Science).
The enrollment of the High School that Thanksgiving was 125 and Mr. Moore taught science and supported the high school athletic and debating programs there for the school year, 1908-09. During his time in Goldfield, he made an interesting discovery near the town of Pioneer:
Found Fish in Desert Stream
Carson City Daily Appeal, Carson City, Nevada, September 4, 1908.
Prof. A. R. Moore, of the Goldfield high school, who has charge of the science department at the school, has just returned to Goldfield from Pioneer, where he made an interesting discovery of a number of small fishes, not exceeding a length of half an inch, which live in an isolated portion of the stream flowing from some hot springs, about four miles from pioneer.
The origin of the fish is interesting in itself, and the fact of their being there is explained by Prof. Moore who says that probably at some long past date, when the Amargosa river flowed upon the surface, the stream from the hot springs formed a tributary of the Amargosa, and that the fish made their way into this tributary, and have since been isolated by the drying up of the Amargosa.Prof. Moore says that in the springs he found a small frog enjoying himself in water of a temperature of 92 degrees Fahrenheit.
The fish live in a portion of the hot stream of a length of about twenty feet, outside of which they are restrained from going by the heat of the water on both sides. The water in which they live is 85 degrees Fahrenheit, the highest temperature in which fish can live. Below the point where the fish are found, and cutting off their passage to the lower portions of the stream, is water of a temperature of 112 degrees Fahrenheit.
Prof. Moore says that in the springs he found a small frog enjoying himself in water of a temperature of 92 degrees Fahrenheit. He attributes the small size of the fish to the heat of the water. – News. (Tonopah Daily Bonanza, April 17, 1909)
Arthur Russell Moore was born in Beaver City, Furnas County, Nebraska on November 10, 1882, the oldest of four children and only son of Ulysses L. Moore and Emma Lucretia (Miller) Moore. His mother, Emma, was born in Ohio in April 1856 and she and Ulysses were married in Beaver City on October 25, 1881. His father, born in 1848 in Tennessee, was a successful Nurseryman for many years in Beaver City where all of their children were born and raised.
1904. Russell Moore graduated from Beaver City high school in 1899 and received his B.A. Degree from the University of Nebraska in 1904. After 3 years as a school teacher, one of which was in Goldfield, he continued his education as a graduate student at the Spreckels Physiological Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley where he received a Ph.D. in physiology in 1911.
Beaver Valley Tribune, Beaver City, Nebraska, July 24, 1891.
In 1913, he accepted the chair of Physiology at Bryn Mawr, a distinguished women’s liberal arts college in Philadelphia, and, during the summers, he was an instructor at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
In April, 1916, Dr. Moore accepted a full professorship at Rutgers College, New Jersey. Also in April, his engagement to Miss Mary Mitchell Chamberlain of West Raleigh, North Carolina, a 1915 Bryn Mawr graduate, was announced. They were married at Woods Hole on August 15, 1916.
A. R. Moore, Dec. 1934, Harold A. Miller Library, Stanford, Hopkins Marine Station photographs.
In 1926, Dr. and Mrs. Moore relocated to Oregon where he was a professor of physiology at the University of Oregon at Eugene, 1926-48, and at the University of Portland, 1948-54. During the years 1926 to 1954, he also lectured many summers at the Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, California, operated by Stanford University. [1]
In 1933, Dr. Moore was highly honored to be called as a visiting professor at the Institute of Biology, Tohoku Imperial University at Sendal, Japan for a little over a year. In September, 1933, in a letter to his aunt, Mrs. T. C. Ehrman, he wrote:
We have finished our first week at this marine station – teaching every day from 8 to 6. …
This Aomori Bay is very lovely with mountains all around, like an Italian lake. It rained the first three days then turned off sunshiny. …
Last Monday there was great excitement. The Emperor’s aunt, princess something, was coming with a retinue of about 25. She was the only one dressed American fashion.
When they came into the laboratory where my class was working, an imposing looking factotum bustled up and asked if I was Prof. Moore of the University of Oregon. I said, yes. So he said, I would like to introduce you to her highness. He did and unlike the Japanese she put out her little hand to shake. I showed her some of the animals and dividing eggs which seemed to interest her until the factotum got worried and said, She has not time. …
When the party left we all lined up outside, as she passed me the princess said goodbye in English. This was interesting as it shows the chic thing here is anything American. Also the royal family is trying to encourage women to wear American dresses instead of the kimono and obi. …
We live in a Japanese house, and have to take off our shoes whenever we come in. It is quite bare of furniture with the exception of four chairs and two tiny tables. The walls are sliding doors of pasteboard. There are no screens and we have to burn incense to keep the mosquitoes down after sunset. …
Well, I must close. I want to get this off on the Empress of Asia, sailing day after tomorrow, so you ought to get it by the 23rd or 25th. I am always anxious to hear. RUSS.
In January, 1947, Dr. Moore was called to San Francisco where he received a medal and was awarded the Order of the Southern Cross by the Brazilian government in recognition of outstanding work as an exchange professor at the University of Brazil during the summer of 1946. The state department also commended Professor Moore for his work as a good will ambassador.
In Pacific Grove, California, on July 28, 1960, Mrs. Mary Mitchell (Chamberlain) Moore passed away at the age of sixty-eight.
On May 25, 1961, Dr. Moore and Miss Sarah Louise Phelps were married at Pacific Grove. Friends for over sixty years, they had attended the University of Nebraska at the same time.
Just months shy of his 80th birthday, Arthur Russell Moore passed away on January 21, 1962 in a Monterey nursing home after a long illness.
Mrs. Sarah Louise (Phelps) Moore passed away in San Jose, California on January 25, 1967.
They are all buried in the El Carmelo Cemetery in Pacific Grove. [2]
[1] The Arthur Russell Moore papers may be found at Stanford University, Stanford, California.
[2] Sources Used: Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org, Findagrave.com & various Newspapers.
