With Santa's stand-in gone Christmas won't be the same  



Last Updated 9/1/00

From the Durand (IL) Gazette, Thursday, July 23, 1981, page 1:

With Santa's stand-in gone Christmas won't be the same
by Owen Phillips

DURAND - A little bit of Durand died Tuesday morning...a lovely little bit of the town.
    The man who generations of youngsters knew as Santa Claus died at Rockford Memorial Hospital after a long illness.
    Adults considered LaVerne Moore Moore "Santa's Helper," knowing Santa sometimes had a little trouble getting clearance to land in Durand blizzards.
    But for hundreds of children in and around the community, he was their first and favorite Santa.
    He was that and more to his own Moore Clan, which numbers 14 children, 44 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
    As the family grew into several families, it outgrew anyone's room to host holiday gatherings. Like Joseph and Mary in the original, religious version of Christmas, LaVerne and his wife Rowena found "no room in the inn."
    Their Christmas family gatherings - a marvel of logistics - moved to the Masonic Hall, where the entire family could be together.
    Getting together wasn't the easiest thing for the Moores, and not just because of their family size. Community service has competed for their time together.
    While LaVerne shouldered Santa's duties in the Durand and Davis areas for weeks up to and including Christmas Day, his wife tended the radio for the Durand Volunteer Fire Dept.
    She's become a fixture there for firemen and newsmen roused from their sleep by beepers and the big siren. Often, before they moved to a home on North Street, she'd make it from her home ot the fire house before anyone else could arrive on the scene.
    That made her housecoat a fixture of late night fire house vigils too. But after raising her brood, she takes to the firemen like just so much more family...and Mom always wears a housecoat when she's helping her children handle problems in the night.
    LaVerne and Rowena's children have picked up the standard of public service from their parents. Oldest son Bob is assistant chief of the volunteer fire department and a village board member.
    Kenneth and Russell, who also lived in Durand, are members of the fire department, and Stephen of Davis is regarded as one of the best umpires of youth games in the region.
    So even though "Santa" is gone, his legacy lives on.
    And with it live some of the best memories of groiwng up in Durand and Davis.


A special gift
LaVerne Moore and Santa Claus made Christmas so much more special for children throughout the area, as scenes like these were repeated time and again for years in the Durand and Davis areas. With LaVerne's help, Santa never missed an appointed round - not even on Christmas Day.

Return to LaVerne and Rowena Moore's family page
 
 

Genealogy of Stephen R. Moore - Article on LaVerne Moore as Santa
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