Harry T. Moore - Early Life

Early Life

Harry Tyson Moore was born on November 18, 1905, in Houston, Florida, a tiny farming community in Suwannee County on the Florida Panhandle. He was the only child of Johnny and Rosalea Moore. His father tended the water tanks for the Seaboard Air Line Railroad and ran a small store in front of their home.

Johnny Moore's health faltered when Harry was nine years old, and he died in 1914. Rosa tried to manage alone, working in the cotton fields and running her store on weekends, but in 1915, she sent Harry to live with one of her sisters in Daytona Beach. The following year he was moved to Jacksonville, where he lived with three other maternal aunts: Jessie, Adrianna and Masie Tyson, of whom two were teachers and the third a nurse. His aunts had a strong influence on him.

In 1919, Moore began his studies at Florida Memorial High School. Over the next four years, Moore excelled in his studies and joined the baseball team. He graduated in May 1925, and then went on to Bethune-Cookman College, where he graduated with a Normal Degree in 1936. Soon after, he accepted a teaching position in Cocoa, Florida. Later, Moore became the principal of the Titusville Colored School in Brevard County; Florida schools were then racially segregated. There he met Harriette Vyda Simms, (born on June 19, 1902). They married on December 25, 1926 and had two daughters, Annie Rosalea Moore (1928–1972) and Juanita Evangeline Moore (born in 1930).