THE LATE FAN MOORE (Nee Dill) REMEMBERED IN BERMUDA
Mrs Fan Moore, widow of Brigadier Jock Moore, and proud, loving and beloved mother, grandmother and great grandmother, died in Lightwater on 4th February this year, aged 97.
Fan’s maiden name was Dill, and she was born in Bermuda, in the midst of a hurricane in August 1915. She was the second youngest in a family of six, one of the oldest Bermudan families, whose ancestors from Ireland first settled in the 1660s.
She was exceptionally proud of her Bermuda antecedents, and also of her life as a British Army wife and mother, through the war, and for many happy years thereafter.
Early last month, the family returned to Bermuda for a Service of Thanksgiving for Fan’s life, held at Devonshire Old Church on Tuesday 9th July, where a remarkable congregation of Fan’s Bermuda relatives and friends gathered, to worship, remember and pay tribute. Officiating at the service was the recently enthroned Anglican Bishop of Bermuda, Nicholas Dill – a great nephew of Fan Moore.
For the occasion, Lodge Brothers created a commemorative plaque of nambresina stone, which was placed in the graveyard wall of the Old Church, Christ Anglican Church, Devonshire Parish, Bermuda. This is one of the oldest churches in the Crown Colony of Bermuda, first built in the 17th Century – soon after the original settlement in 1612.
Now, Fan Moore’s plaque looks down upon the graves of her father, Colonel Tom Dill, Attorney General, her mother Ruth, from Princeton New Jersey, her siblings and many Dill forebears – some of them renowned sea captains.
Then, some of Fan’s ashes were planted under a new peach tree, in the grounds of one of the oldest family houses.
Fan’s son Ian commented, “Our ‘pilgrimage’ to Bermuda – the Service of Thanksgiving, our tree planting, and the plaque placing were most memorable events, and we will always look back on them with pride. A big ‘Thank You’ to Lodge Brothers, at Ashford and Brentford, for producing and conveying such a memorable plaque – so that our mother is now suitably remembered in the island of her birth. And knowing her green fingers, we trust the tree we planted will soon flower and bear fine fruit.”
