Nancy Colden Moore was devoted to family, nature, music and art. She was born Nancy Colden Lasher in 1926 in Bronxville, NY. Her parents were Isabelle Jennings Bush and Robert Reed Lasher. She was very fond of her older brother, the late Robert Eltinge Lasher.

Moore earned a bachelor’s degree in English, worked as an editor in New York City, and raised a large family with her loving husband of 58 years, Merl Marshall Moore, Jr. of Racine, Wisc., who died in 2011. He served 34 years in the U.S. Army, retiring as a Colonel in 1976, and 34 years as an American art historian.

She grew up in Bronxville and New Paltz, NY, a Huguenot village founded by her ancestors, French Protestants, in the Hudson Valley. She was a member of the Dutch Reformed Church, a denomination from the Protestant Reformation.

In 1945, Moore graduated from high school in Bronxville. For the next four years, she attended New Jersey College for Women, which became Douglass College and later, part of Rutgers. From 1949 to 1952, she worked as an editor in New York City at The McGraw-Hill Publishing Company.

Nancy and Merl met in 1952 in New York City, through mutual friends, while he was looking at graduate school. They fell in love and were married on January 10, 1953 in Nancy’s ancestral home, the Locusts, in New Paltz.

Over the next seven years, they would move six times and have five children. Elizabeth Maxwell was born in Germany. Derick Colden was born in France. Charles Marshall was born in New Jersey. Magdalene Eltinge was born in Taiwan. Sarah Evans was born in Kansas. Nancy was extremely proud of all of her children, ten grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

In 1962, the Moores moved to Falls Church and settled on Midvale Street. Nancy loved music, especially singing in the Dulin United Methodist Church choir for more than 30 years. Her favorites included Bach’s St. John’s Passion, Handle’s Messiah, and numerous hymns. After Nancy and Merl became empty nesters in 1979, they would head to New England every summer for her to sing with the Berkshire Choral Institute.

Nancy is survived by all of her 18 descendants, all seven of their spouses, and her niece Kate Jennings (Lasher) Pepper, husband Mark, and their son Sam. Kate and Mark live at the Locusts. Merl Moore’s nephew Stephen W. Lyman, his wife Connie, and their son Andy also survive her.

A memorial service will be held at Dulin United Methodist Church, 513 E. Broad St., Falls Church on Saturday, Jan. 9 at 2 p.m. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made in Moore’s name to the Dulin Church Memorial Fund