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The Other Mrs Moore

The Lewis Legacy-Issue 77, Summer 1998 The C.S. Lewis Foundation for Truth in Publishing

In 1998 public questions emerged for the first time about the mystery woman from Northern Ireland who lived and died on the grounds of the Kilns in the late 1930s. Her name was Alice Moore, but she was not any relative of Janie Moore’s. Yet when she died in 1939 Janie Moore was her sole heir and Maureen was her executor, In 1951 Janie Moore was buried in Alice Moore’s grave in the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church.

According to Douglas Gresham, when he arrived at the Kilns there was a small two-roomed weather-board shack on the Kilns property, almost completely overgrown with creepers and bushes. When Doug asked Fred Paxford about it, he learned that it had been built to serve as “Mrs. Moore’s house.” In her lonely widowhood, the Lewis brothers had brought her over from Ireland and built that little bungalow for her. The little house later became Doug’s “‘Gang Hut,’ rather a posh one actually as it had two rooms and a coal fired heating stove”. (His words.)

Alice Moore’s great nephew, Chris Shelley of Culver City, California, began to seek information about her a few years ago, and in 1997 his mother, Mrs. Shelley of Wiltshire, England, wrote to James O’Fee, asking for his help. Alice Moore was evidently a distant relative of the Lewis brothers, and they visited her in her home at Kilkeel in August 1934. Janie Moore and Maureen were with them, and that is evidently how the two Mrs. Moores met and became friends.

Chris Shelley was also interested in the financing of the Kilns and noticed the following in Warren’s diary: “Cost of the Kilns 3300, Paid cash (I paid) 300, Mortgage held by J 1000, Mortgage held by me 500, Mortgage held by Askins trustees 1500.” Shelley concludes, “Thus the Lewis brothers invested 1800. The Askins only 1500.”