Dorothy Moore grew up on a farm in between the towns of Dorchester and Crete, Nebraska. She was the youngest of five. At an early age, she started to play the piano. “Unlike my sisters, I always loved to practice the piano,” Dorothy explained. This unusual love to practice made her into the great piano player she is today. It was at a small country school called the “Cracker Box” where Dorothy would spend the first eight years of her education. From there she went to high school in Crete.

After graduating from high school, the Crete native decided to continue her education at the Nebraska Wesleyan University. On top of going to school, Dorothy also worked at the school cafeteria. After four years Dorothy got her degree in sociology.

The Wesleyan graduate then moved on to her first “real” job. She was a social studies teacher in the small town of McCool Junction. Dorothy would not get her first car until the next year, which means she had to walk to school every day and then got rides home on the weekends. This chapter was quickly closed because at the end of the year she quit her teaching job and took another one in a welfare office. “I didn’t really like teaching, so I got a job in the welfare office in Aurora and loved it,” Dorothy stated.

In the welfare office, Dorothy would determine eligibility for welfare. The Wesleyan graduate worked in Aurora for three years until she married Jack Moore. They moved to the Lyons area in 1953.

Dorothy was moving back to a farm. She would live on this farm north of Lyons until the year 2001.

Jack and Dorothy had eight kids together. All of these kids went to the Jefferson County School for their primary education and then attended Lyons for their secondary education. When Dorothy’s youngest was in kindergarten she started to work at a full-time job once again. She worked at the welfare office in Pender for 3 years. After working in Pender, she then moved on to the welfare office in Tekamah and worked there for 20 years until she finally retired in the year 1993.

Both Dorothy and Jack were retired, so they went on a trip to Israel. Dorothy said, “You just have to go to see it, to see where Jesus was.” Their travels did not end there. In 1999 the pair went on a cruise to Alaska. Two years later Dorothy moved into Lyons right across from where she had taken her kids to get piano lessons for so many years.

Nowadays, Dorothy spends her time going to church, the senior center, and reading her Bible. Dorothy has learned a lot over her lifetime. When she was asked about what her biggest life lessons were she said, “Accept what you have, work as hard as you can, try to be a good Christian, and try not to be too critical of people.”