Francis H Moore: My Grandfather

Francis H Moore: Picture From Citizenship Document


I never knew my grandfather. He died before I was born. This has been a big regret in my life. From what I know of him, he could have been a good role model for me and my brother.

What I know of him came mainly though his letters to friends and family in Sydney Mines and Wigan. He always typed a carbon copy of these letters and kept them. After he died these letters fell into the hands of my uncle Francis aka “Harry.” I received a bound copy of these letters held by uncle for a Christmas present. Almost all that I know about him came from those letters.

From these letters I discovered he did not live in Wigan like I thought. He lived in Aspull/Haigh. Aspull and the neighboring Haigh are about 3 to 4 miles northeast of the much larger city of Wigan in Lancashire, England. From Aspull to the Blackrod, the home of Richard Moore is about more 2 miles further up the road. That makes Blackrod about 4 to 5 miles from Wigan.

From what I can tell from the letters he was a very intelligent man even though he ended his education at the eighth grade to work in the mines. He wrote short stories. He learned Spanish. He would write radio quiz shows and offer his questions on history and literature. He was knowledgeable on current events and had a definite opinion on the labor movement and what was going on in Europe with Hitler. In all his letters I never have come across a spelling or typing error.
Francis Henry Moore was born in Aspull in to Constantine and Mary Watmough Moore who lived at 31 Church Street on 23 Nov 1880. He attended Mass and school at the Our Lady’s Roman Catholic Church. By 1897 he is already working at the Wigan Iron and Coal Company. He is just 16 or 17 years old. On 25 Oct 1905 he married Phoebe Blinkhorn at St Williams Church in Ince where Phoebe lived. (Ince is about a mile from Aspull.) In April 1907 Francis Moore leaves England and immigrates to Sydney Mines, Nova Scotia, Canada. His ship was the Tunisia. In Sydney Mines he worked on the railroad that serviced the coal mines. He was fireman. He joined the union and remained a member pretty much the rest of his life. In 24 Jun 1923 he left Canada and immigrated to Whittier, CA with his brother Wilfred. They came to Whittier to work in the nearby Santa Fe Springs oil field. Phoebe and the children would join him in Feb 1924. He built the family home on Hoover Street with Phoebe after 1930. He became a citizen of the USA but always had a love of England until the day he died. He was transferred to the Taft Oil fields about 120 north of Los Angeles. There, in the spring of 1940, he contracted pneumonia. He died in the bathroom of his house on Hoover. He and Phoebe had four children. Wilfred was born in Wigan born on 8 Nov 1906. Francis Henry “Harry” was born on 12 Sep 1908. Florence Gertrude “Florie” was born on 29 Nov 1910. My father, Frederick Vincent “Freddy”, was born on 29 Dec 1916. All three of the younger children were born in Sydney Mines, Nova Scotia, Canada.

That is my grandfather in a nutshell. In future posts, I will list a detail time line with sources for Francis Moore for those genealogists and others that are interested.

Copyright 2011 Paul Moore