MOUNT VERNON – A Mount Vernon man who served in the U.S. Army during World War II and worked as an oil rigger celebrated his 100th birthday Nov. 3.
Robert E. Moore’s family held a birthday celebration at the Apple Valley Club House on Nov. 6, his youngest son, Mike Moore, told the Mount Vernon News.
Moore was born in Mount Vernon in a house on North Main Street just north of the YMCA and grew up in a house on East Pleasant Street.
Moore married his wife, Eileen, on New Year’s Eve in 1941. This year would have been their 80th wedding anniversary, but she died on July 15.
“They knew each other for over 90 years because they went to elementary school together at Hiawatha,” Mike Moore said.
The couple graduated from Mount Vernon High School in 1941.
Moore was inducted into the U.S. Army on Aug. 21, 1942, and served in the Army Corps of Engineers until Oct. 23, 1945. After basic training, he shipped out to Tybee Island, Ga., and then on to Europe.
“I remember Dad telling me that they thought that there was a German U-boat chasing them, so they ended up landing in Casablanca,” Mike said.
He helped rebuild the bombed-out port of Naples and later repaired and built bridges on the Rhine River from France to Germany.
After time spent in Europe during World War II, he returned to Mount Vernon to work in the family oil drilling business.
“He went to work in business with my grandfather and his brother in the drilling business, which my grandfather had done all his life, as my great-grandfather had done,” Mike said.
When Moore’s grandfather retired, Mike’s dad and uncle split off the business and went their own ways. His dad worked a cable tool rig, drilling wells from northwest Ohio down below Somerset.
“Dad and Mom built a house on the Upper Fredericktown Road in Mount Vernon in 1947. This is still Dad’s home, but [he] has chosen not to go back since Mom passed away. They had been there 74 years,” Mike Moore said. He joined his dad in the business in 1972 or 1973 and worked with him until he retired in the early 1980s.
Sometime in the 1960s or earlier Moore began attending and hosting reunions of the 1051st Engineers.
Robert and Eileen also bought a home in Florida, which they visited annually during the winter. He still owns and wants to visit, Mike said.
The couple took regular trips with their friends, Max and Joan Guilozett, including a visit to Hawaii. They bought a motorhome and drove to Nova Scotia, then west across Canada to British Columbia before turning south and coming down to California. From there, they drove east across the U.S. to return home.
Mike praised both his father and his mother.
“I don't know if I've ever heard my dad say a swear word. He's a very peaceful man. A very quiet man, and coming from the oilfield drilling business you don't find that, very seldom. But my grandpa was the same way,” he said.
