Grace Moore is grand marshal

Longtime Idyllwild resident Grace Moore is this year’s Fourth of July Parade grand marshal. Idyllwild Rotary Club, parade organizer, made the announcement which came as a surprise to Moore who said she didn’t know why they would pick her. “It’s fantastic,” she said when reached by telephone in Oregon. “I was quite surprised.”

Her long residency here, and founding and running the charitable Gracie’s Thrift Store at the Idyllwild Community Presbyterian Church, are reasons for the honor.

Moore was born in Metropolis, Ill. in 1923 and married husband George in 1942. After the World War II, they moved to Phoenix, then in 1952 to Torrance where Moore worked for Bank of America until 1978.

Moore remembers coming to Idyllwild in the early 1960s to visit a friend, Phil Hodges of Hodges Electric. “Idyllwild was smaller then,” she remembered. “We’d come here to visit and play in the snow with our children. You couldn’t get a cracker to eat after 5 in the afternoon; everything closed up.”

But it was beautiful and a place that the family returned to regularly. The Moores bought a home here in 1979. “I’ve been here ever since,” she said. “I do not plan on leaving here and I have loved every minute of it.”

With grandchildren and family in tow, Moore said she is looking forward to the Fourth of July celebration and to serving as grand marshal. “It’s quite an honor,” she said.