Ursula Susanne Moore
Oct. 4, 1922-May 21, 2024
Palo Alto, California

Ursula Moore, 101, died May 21 at her Palo Alto home where she had resided for 74 years. Ursula was adored by her 3 children, Barbara Ellis, Virginia Davis and Jacqueline Moore, 9 grandchildren, 11 great-grandchildren and her son-in-law Mark Davis. Ursula was born in Breslau, Germany and fled the Nazis in 1938. Her parents chose Berkeley because the weather was beautiful and the university was free. Puzzled by the German educational system, the Berkeley school district decided she belonged in college, so she enrolled in UC Berkeley at 16, graduating at 19 with a BA and again at 21 with a masters in psychiatric social work.

She met the love of her life, Ernest J. Moore, also a refugee from Germany, when folk dancing at UC’s International House. Considered enemy aliens, Ernest’s family required special governmental dispensation to travel from San Francisco to Berkeley for their son and Ursula’s wedding at the Claremont Hotel in 1942. Just days after the event, Ursula and Ernest moved to Maryland, where he joined the US army as a Richie Boy and she became a Red Cross driver. They were together for the next 63 years until Ernest’s death in 2005.

After WWII they moved to Palo Alto, creating a home and tight-knit family for not just their children but also their children’s friends, including their “daughters by choice” Carolyn Couls, Clark Conant and Katharine Jessen, each of whom lived with them for several years during their childhoods and early adult years. Even though she proudly embraced her American citizenship, Ursula couldn’t help bringing some of her European roots with her, always dressing with an understated elegance and introducing the 1950’s neighborhood to the concept of seated dinner parties, seasonal produce and wine with dinner.

Ursula was a lecturer in the Stanford University Child Psychiatry Clinic during the 1960s and 1970s, where she provided individual and group therapy and was also part of a research team studying hypnosis. A trailblazer in every way, she worked throughout motherhood and into old age, retiring from her subsequent private practice only at age 95.

Ursula remained an active and magical grandmother far into her grandchildren’s adulthood. She invited them for evenings of homemade dinners and sent them off to their jobs the next morning with lovingly packed sack lunches filled with gourmet sandwiches and home-baked desserts. Just as she saw each of their milestones, achievements and mistakes through rose- colored glasses, she adored and doted on their children, her great grandchildren.

A life-long Democrat and member of the League of Women Voters, Ursula kept up with—and was kept up late worrying about—the American government. She had a fierce moral compass and didn’t hesitate to call out right from wrong, especially when it came to instilling independence in her daughters and granddaughters. She was a true matriarch and the organizing force for her family, who will all miss her deeply.

A service commemorating Ursula will take place in September. Donations in her memory may be made to CancerChampions.org or yolocasa.org.