Mary Ruth Hardigree Jones Moore

Mary Ruth Hardigree Jones Moore, an artist, and teacher of photography for 44 years at The University of Georgia Lamar Dodd School of Art, died Monday, June 5, at Quiet Oaks Nursing Home in Crawford, Georgia. She was 87. Ms. Moore was known for her extraordinary work with hand-built pinhole cameras, the simplest of photographic tools with which she created timeless masterpieces of imagery. She developed a scholarly knowledge of 20th-century photography imparting her knowledge to her students with intense enthusiasm. But she thought of herself first as a teacher, and she taught and inspired hundreds of students. One of those students, Ben Reynolds continues her legacy teaching in the same program and is affectionately referred to as her “assistant for life”. Ms. Moore was a serious student of the Civil War, a loving mother of three, a grandmother of 10, and an avid fan of the Georgia Bulldogs and the Atlanta Braves. She was born on April 2, 1936, in the front bedroom of her mother’s parents’ house on what is now Carson Graves Road in Watkinsville. Her mother, Ruth Graves, was the youngest of 11 children and her father, Reginald Hardigree, grew up on the farm where Ms. Moore has lived since 1970. Her father was an engineer who designed and supervised power plant construction across the southeast moving his family every few years for his next project. Ms. Moore attended schools in Macon, Georgia, Pensacola, Florida, Charleston, South Carolina, and Mobile, Alabama, where she graduated from high school. She graduated from The University of Montevallo in Alabama with a Bachelor of Art degree. In 1960, she married Wayne Jones, whom she had known in high school, and settled in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Her husband died unexpectedly in 1962 leaving Ms. Moore with two daughters, Laura Lee almost two years old and Bess barely two months old. After living with her parents for three years in Birmingham, she moved her two girls back to the ancestral home place, originally built in 1870 in Watkinsville, GA. In 1973 she married Alan Moore and her third child, Luke, was born in 1974. Mr. Moore died in 1993. In 1965 she began teaching school, being the first art teacher in the Oconee County School System. At this time she attended The University of Georgia part-time where she received a Masters Degree in Art Education in 1970. She began teaching at The Lamar Dodd School of Art, University of Georgia in 1973. She spent eleven summers teaching photography with the UGA Studies Abroad Program in Cortona Italy. She was an active member and Sunday School teacher at Antioch Christian Church. She loved to collect old bottles and was an avid historian. She was one of the few who could untangle the South Oconee County genealogy web, being a descendant of patriots who fought in the American Revolution. Ms. Moore was preceded in death by her two husbands, Horace Wayne Jones, and Alan Aaron Moore, Jr., as well as her beloved brother, Randolph (Randy) Steven Hardigree. She is survived by her sister Jeanne McKee, her three children: Laura Lee Samford (John); Bess Durham (Greg), and Luke Moore (Julie); grandchildren Daniel Samford, Suzanne Samford Tatum, and Laura Samford Smith; grandchildren Samuel Durham, Jones Durham, and Nathaniel Durham; and grandchildren Norine Moore, Silas Moore, Abigail Moore, and Lucy Moore, as well as countless nieces, nephews, and cousins. Arrangements are scheduled for Sunday, July 2 at Antioch Christian Church at 4pm with light refreshments at the Thomas Cotton Gin 5-7p.m. The family is deeply appreciative of the loving care she received at Magnolia Estates in Watkinsville, as well as at Quiet Oaks Nursing Home in Crawford, Georgia. In lieu of flowers, the family recommends donations to the Mary Ruth Moore Reciprocity (scholarship) Fund: https://t.uga.edu/99U University of Georgia Foundation Attn: UGAF Gift Accounting 1 Press Place, Suite 101 Athens, GA 30602 (706) 542-8160.
Lord & Stephens Funeral Homes, West, Watkinsville, GA is in charge of arrangements. wwwlordandstephens.com