Florence Connors Moore Gilbert, who died of emphysema Feb. 11 at age 74, shepherded a brood of eight children while cultivating a lifelong career as a writer.
She was the third of four children born to Matilda and Thom as Connors, who managed a Binghamton, N.Y., car agency before moving to Colorado.
An exceptional student, Gilbert was stung when she once finished second in her seventh-grade class. She focused on her studies and won the top-student medal the next year, keeping the medal close for the rest of her life.
Upon graduating from St. Francis de Sales High School, she received a full academic scholarship to Loretto Heights College, where she edited the literary magazine and served as student- body president.
Instead of accepting the English master’s fellowship offered by Marquette University, Gilbert married Denver Post sportswriter Ralph Wayne Moore Jr., father of her eight children.
Her oldest child was barely 6 when The Denver Post hired her as “Our Gal in Arvada” in 1961. A year later, The Post published a photograph of its Gal surrounded “by the seven reasons why the quality and quantity of her work never fail to impress her bosses.” (She would go on to have one more child.)
She kept a typewriter on the kitchen table, near the telephone. After getting her older children off to school, she began calling city officials and other sources, often still in her bathrobe as she took notes.
In 1966, publisher Harry Farrar persuaded her to co-found the Arvada Citizen (now Sentinel), where she covered municipal and school-board meetings, reviewed community-theater plays and wrote a chatty column called “The Namedropper.”
“I guess that having a lot of children teaches you how to sandwich a lot of activity into a little bit of time,” she said in 1970, when she ran an unsuccessful Democratic campaign for the Jefferson County clerk’s office.
The Moores attended Mass every Sunday, occupying a whole pew. The children fought for the rare opportunity to sit beside their mother, luxuriating as she stroked their hair during the liturgy.
In 1979, after her first marriage ended in divorce and she was working at Regis College to get high school tuition discounts for her sons, she married Arvada veterinarian G.H. “Doc” Gilbert.
Besides her husband, survivors include daughters Kathleen Moore McNear of Arvada and Theresa Moore of Littleton; sons Patrick Moore of Las Vegas, Daniel Moore of Thornton, Kevin Moore of Arvada, Brian Moore and Denver Post theater critic John Moore, both of Denver; sister Patricia Jones of Littleton; brother Tommy Connors of Littleton; 13 grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. Son Michael Moore and a brother predeceased her.
A rosary will be held at 7 tonight at Church of the Good Shepherd, 2626 E. Seventh Ave., followed by Mass at 10 a.m. Friday at the church.
Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-820-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com.