The Moore Family Suffers Another Loss

After they lost their father and sister Frances within the space of two years,  Scott and George Moore vowed to continue the family-owned business as long as they could.

Moore's Farm Market would remain, a testament to the business their parents -- George Moore Sr. and their mother Mildred --  started on Route 9 in 1952, the two brothers said in an interview with Berkeley Patch last December.

"It's hard to fill the void," Scott said then. "But we try to keep carrying on for them. You don't get over it. You just get through it."

But now only Scott, 44, the youngest sibling, and his 90-year-old mother are left of that immediate family to carry on. His oldest brother George A. Moore, 65, died on June 3 at Ocean Medical Center in Brick.

"He had lung problems," his sister-in-law Sally Harne said. "That's eventually what he died of. But it was very sudden and pretty unexpected."

Many of the people who buy their Scotch pines every Christmas, tomatoes and peppers in the summer and pumpkins in October from the family packed the Mastapeter Funeral home in Bayville today to mourn along with them.

The parking lot was jammed and cars lined both sides of Pelican Drive. There was a waiting line to get into the funeral home.

Inside, George's wife Patricia, who is the special education director for the Berkeley Township school district, his daughters Beth Moore, Kate Camburn and Jessica Del Prete greeted those who came to pay their respects.

Scott sat off to one side with his mother and wife Kate, near his older brother's coffin.

George, a rabid Central Regional High School football fan, was wearing his maroon Central Regional jacket and baseball cap. A floral arrangement crafted in the shape of a football, with Central Regional colors, was nearby.  One arrangement was perched on a pile of vegetable boxes adorned with ripe red tomatoes.

The farm market has always been the centerpiece of the family's lives. George, Frances and Scott worked alongside their father and mother from the time they were children. And they stood by their parents back in October 1988, when a devastating fast-moving fire gobbled up the original wood-frame farm market.

A few days later, a man offered George Moore a million dollars for the prime three-acre piece of land that fronts on Route 9 South. George Moore told him no. His children wanted to keep the business going. A new corrugated steel building went up, one that wouldn't burn.

George Moore handled all the fresh Christmas tree purchases for the market each year, in addition to his other duties. The man who supplied them was on his way down from Canada today to pay his respects, Harne said.

Scott Moore said he wanted to keep the business going.

"I'm going to try," he said.

Moore's Farm Market has been a Bayville tradition for as long as Council Vice-President Carmen J. Amato Jr. can remember.

"My parents went there, I went there. It was automatic," Amato said. "When you wanted something, it was gotta go to Moore's."

George Moore is also survived by his grandchildren, Tyler and Annie Del Prete and Ryan and Lindsey Camburn. He was predeceased by his daughter Ann Elizabeth Moore, and his twin granddaughters, Megan and Allison Camburn, according to his obituary on Legacy.com.

Another viewing was held last night at the funeral home at 270 Atlantic City Boulevard. The funeral will be held at 10:30 a.m. this morning at the funeral home.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Central Regional chorus/drama or Central Regional football, c/o the Central Regional School District, Forest Hills Parkway, Bayville, NJ 08721.