Orono, Maine - Donald Eugene (Moor) Moore died peacefully at the Maine Veterans' Home in Bangor on March 1, 2026, with his loving wife of 45 years and his son at his his side, after a long battle with multiple myeloma and Alzheimer's. At his request, we share this obituary he helped write.

I was born in Ellsworth, Maine, on February 9, 1941, the fourth child of Carl Russell Moore and Harriet Georgianna (Moore) Moore. My mother had the same last name before they married, but they were not related. My father's ancestral last name was originally spelled Moor, and an "e" was added in error sometime in the distant past by a town clerk.

For the first eleven years of my life I happily roamed the Ellsworth area with playmates and siblings, swam and fished in Leonard's Lake, trekked into a rustic camp on Green Lake on my father's shoulders, and drove to Mount Desert Island to swim in the ocean and climb the hills. I vaguely remember WW II rationing but never felt poor. However, I vividly remember the Bar Harbor fire of 1947. I leaned out my bedroom window and saw the glow of the fire. The adults around me talked about the tragedy of lost forest, homes, and animals. Tar on roads melted. It was terrible.

My pre-teen and teenage years were spent in Milwaukee, WI, with my mother, grandmother, and a sister after my mother and father divorced. I spent the next years of my life trying to get back to Maine. Living in Milwaukee was quite a shock for a Maine boy, and it was not the happiest time of my life. I quit school at 17 and joined the Marines in 1958. I traveled the world, gained some self-confidence, and just barely missed the Vietnam war. My military occupational specialty was communications and morse code, and I assisted officers in land and ship-to-shore strikes. I was honorably discharged in 1962.

I finally made my way back to Maine and joined my father, his new family, and my older brother in Ellsworth. My brother, Harry Moore, seven years older and wiser, helped me in many ways, not the least of which was getting me into college. First, I attended Husson in Bangor and later went to Connecticut, where I finished a BS in marketing at the University of New Haven.

By the 1960s there was a baby boom, and schools needed teachers, especially business teachers, and I was recruited to teach accounting at Hamden High School in Hamden, Connecticut. I completed a masters program to get a required education degree. I also married my first wife and had son, Carl.

I loved teaching at Hamden High, but I missed Maine. I found a job teaching accounting in Orono in 1971 and I stayed with the Orono School Department teaching cooperative vocational education and directing the adult education program until 1990. With a CAS in administration from the University of Maine, I took a position as director of the Hancock County Technical School until I retired.

Meanwhile, along the way, I married my second wife of 45 years, Paula, and we enjoyed camping and canoeing the wilds of Maine and spending time at our camp on Junior Lake. My retirement career also included hunting, canoe building, and camp building. I worked to protect wolves through the Maine Wolf Coalition, spoke to the Maine legislature about protecting the Maine environment, and lobbied my neighbors in the Downeast Lakes watershed about keeping the area safe for fish, wildlife, campers, and canoeists. I lived life to my fullest, loved Maine outdoors dearly, and have no regrets.

My oldest sister, Alice Wilcox, and my brother, Harry Moore, predeceased me. I leave behind my beloved wife, Paula; my son, Carl of Albany, NY, daughter-in-law, Sarah, and granddaughters, Madeline and Isabel; my sister, Natalie Healey; my sister-in-law, Ellen Moore; stepbrother and sisters; and many dear cousins, nieces and nephews, and their offspring.

If you want to do something in my memory, please send donations to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital: 1-800-608-3023 or stjude.org. St. Jude was the patron saint of "hopeless cases." I took his name when I was confirmed. I was in the ninth grade at St. Elizabeth's Prep School for Messer High School in Milwaukee. St. Jude Hospital never bills families for treating children with cancer or other maladies. I care deeply about helping children who are suffering and their families.

A memorial service for Don will be held in April, date and venue TBD.