Ursula Moore Works wanted her obituary to describe her as the “mother of all soccer mothers,” and she was that.
Works, who died in Denver on Feb. 2 at 76, had the idea of bringing soccer to central Denver kids decades ago. And she did.
Services will be at 11 a.m. today at St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral, East 13th Avenue and Clarkson Street.
Works, a master of persuasion, convinced other moms, as well as city officials, that boys needed an alternative to the highly structured Little League teams. Her son, Derek Moore, was one of the first soccer players who got permission to play at Congress Park. She was delighted in later years that girls teams were formed.
Derek Moore, of Summit, N.J., and his sister, Jennifer Ballentine of Denver, recall their mother getting people organized to make uniforms, sew on team patches and make goal posts out of leftover lumber.
Works was just as “tenacious” at stopping an East 6th Avenue freeway that was being considered for her neighborhood in the 1960s, said her friend Frances Taylor.
Wearing red tennis shoes (she owned several pairs), Works went door-to-door delivering fliers and talking to neighbors. “People got riled up,” said Taylor, who joined Works’ group, POWUR (Preserve Our Way of Urban Residence).
Works wasn’t comfortable talking to crowds, but she was convincing one-on-one, friends and family said. She often appealed to women as mothers, convincing them of what would be good for their children.
“She was a bit of a contrarian, but she usually got people to do what she wanted without putting anyone down,” Ballentine said.
Works also “strapped on those tennis shoes” when she joined anti-Vietnam War marches and civil-rights rallies, said Ballentine.
Always whimsical, Works loved giving offbeat parties for neighbors and making up elaborate games with her grandchildren.
Ursula Ronnebeck was born in Denver on May 6, 1929, to Arnold Ronnebeck, a sculptor and Denver Art Museum director, and Louise Emerson Ronnebeck, a muralist. She earned earned a bachelor’s degree in art history from Vassar College and a master’s at Iliff School of Theology here.
She married fellow East High graduate John Allen Moore, a lawyer, in 1953. After his death in 1979, she married John Hamilton Works Sr., who died in 2004.
In addition to her children, she is survived by two grandchildren and her brother, Arnold Ronnebeck of Albuquerque.
Near the end of her life, she requested that her devoted cat, Pearl, be euthanized as soon as she herself died.
“We’re like two old ladies on a race to the Pearly Gates,” she told her family.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at vculver@denverpost.com or 303-820-1223.
