John Shearer: Some Of Singer Grace Moore’s Furniture Now In Public Domain

Several years ago, Forrest and Penny Simmons of Lookout Mountain acquired a very old chest that they thought would be nice to sell in their antique booth they had in Atlanta at the time.
 
As the situation turned out, it was a literal treasure chest, as it contained valuable songbooks and autographed memorabilia belonging to the late noted singer and actress Grace Moore, whose family lived in Chattanooga.
 
The Simmonses deduced that the chest had belonged to Miss Moore and realized they had made quite an acquisition when they bought it.
 
They have since become even more attached to it, and the reason is also due to the treasure that they think the very old chest by itself is. “We walk by it 10 times a day, and every time I walk by it, I look at it,” said Mr. Simmons. “I’ve gotten quite fond of it.”
 
Mr. Simmons thinks that the items might have originally come from the castle-like Apollo Road home on Lookout Mountain that had belonged to Miss Moore’s brother, Richard Moore. He was the second generation of his family to head Lovemans department store and worked there for a number of years before his death in 1985.
 
Mr. Simmons said he was on a bike ride with Moore relative Ricky Moore not too long ago and learned Mr. Moore had bought Miss Moore’s vanity set at a subsequent auction. So he realized other Grace Moore furniture was out there.
 
Mr. Moore, who works with Brooks, Moore and Associates, Inc., said he is a great-nephew of the noted star, but was not familiar with the story behind the furniture.
 
With his help, though, Richard Moore’s daughter, Mems Bicking, was contacted and she explained the story of the items. She said that she and her husband, Sam, had formerly lived in her parents’ home, but decided in recent years to get rid of a few of Miss Moore's furniture pieces.
 
“When we moved, we didn’t have room for it, so we auctioned it off,” she said. “It was time for other people to have it.”
 
Ms. Bicking – who did hold on to some of Miss Moore’s important personal memorabilia -- called the items “stage furniture,” hinting that perhaps their use might have been more related to the singer’s career or office/dressing room than to her home.
 
Ms. Bicking said the furniture had been given to her father after Miss Moore’s death in 1947. He also lived in the home at 259 Apollo Road on the West Brow of Lookout Mountain, Ga., a residence that Miss Moore praised after a visit for its beauty and awe in her 1944 autobiography, “You’re Only Human Once.”
 
Forrest Simmons said they acquired the chest about 2010 or 2011. While living in the Atlanta area and operating an antique booth, they had been coming up regularly to auctions at the Chattanooga Auction House on South Broad Street and Northgate Antique Gallery in Hixson.
 
During one auction at the Chattanooga Auction House, they were unable to attend in person, but Mr. Simmons’ mother, the late Fran Simmons, was there and called her son about a lot, or collection of pieces being sold together. Included were a headboard, three chairs, two end tables, two fragile sconces and the chest.
 
“Mom called us and said, ‘You’ve got to buy this,’ ” Mr. Simmons recalled. “I said we haven’t seen them yet, and she said, ‘Just trust me on this.’ ”
 
Mr. Simmons added that the bidding was not hotly contested, although they did pay a little more than they wanted. However, they quickly got back what they invested both financially and, as mentioned, in terms of enjoyment.
 
Penny Simmons ended up trying to sell the items at their booth for what Mr. Simmons thought were outrageous prices. However, it turned out she had figured out a good market value.
 
“Within a week we sold the headboard to a decorator out of Birmingham,” Mr. Simmons said. “He was going to use it in a Birmingham decorators show house. He paid more for the headboard than we spent on the entire lot.”
 
At that point, they figured they could keep the chest with which they were becoming enamored as well as the fragile sconces now kept in storage. They did sell the other items, however.
 
The chest now sits in an area between the great room and the front door of their Lookout Mountain home they moved to in 2014 from Atlanta. They had thought about getting it restored, but eventually decided just to keep it as it is.
 
Mr. Simmons, a senior wealth adviser in Chattanooga and former University of North Carolina tennis player in the early 1970s, said they think it is an Italian chest from the mid-1700s. As was the custom to do at the time, it does not have its original look.
 
“It was a chest that had originally been mahogany with inlay,” said Ms. Simmons. “It was the tradition to coat it completely with plaster and to repaint it.”
 
Ms. Simmons thinks that Miss Moore might have bought the piece in Italy during her travels related to her singing career. “I tried to research the chest because she had done a lot of work in Italy,” she said. “We were pretty sure it was like a 1700s chest.”
 
Ms. Bicking thinks some of Miss Moore’s furniture that was auctioned might have also come from France.
 
After purchasing the waist-high chest that is now greenish in color and features floral patterns, the Simmonses quickly discovered another layer of history. But this one was very much American, not European, in origin. Looking in the drawers, they discovered some old songbooks and photographs of Miss Moore, and that was when they realized the connection.
 
One songbook was given to the star and autographed by a composer likely trying to get her to sing the song professionally. She signed another sheet of music, “Grace Moore Parera,” apparently just so she could keep up with her own copy of the song. She had married Valentin Parera, a Spanish actor, in 1931. He lived until 1986.           
 
Miss Moore, whose career included being an accomplished Metropolitan Opera star as well as an Academy Award nominee for her role in the 1934 movie, “One Night of Love,” did not grow up in Chattanooga, but her family moved here after her career began.
 
Besides her parents, Col. and Mrs. Richard Moore, who lived in Riverview, she also had several other siblings who lived on Lookout Mountain in the mid-20th century before her death 70 years ago in a plane crash in Copenhagen. They included another brother, James Moore, and a sister, Mrs. Thomas Mahan.
 
Elin Hayes, who later lived in Grace Moore’s former home in Connecticut that became the star’s main home in the latter part of her life and was also mentioned in a 2016 chattanoogan.com article about Miss Moore, said that some of the star’s other items were also kept in that home.
 
“When Grace died, Val (her husband) removed some personal and family items from the house, including her medals, the piano, her Royal Copenhagen china, and her clothes, among other things,” Ms. Hayes recalled recently. “It is my understanding that when the house went on the market (around 1949), it was still furnished and included decorative items as well as other personal effects such as papers, fan items and mail, receipts, letters, etc.”
 
She said that a few items, including Miss Moore’s furniture, were kept by the later owners when they put the house up for sale around 1955.
 
“After that, some things were left in the house and passed from owner to owner, finally being almost entirely dispersed in a bank sale of the contents around 1988. It was at this time that her autographed guest book was lost,” added Ms. Hayes, whose family purchased the empty home in 1993 and found only a couple brown bags of fan mail, letters and receipts relating to her Brentwood, Calif., home that Miss Moore also had.
 
As mentioned in the story last year about some of Miss Moore’s belongings and memorabilia, former Chattanoogan Marian Powers, who had been married to Miss Moore’s brother, James Moore Sr., gave Ms. Hayes Miss Moore’s grand piano. Ms. Hayes said she left it with the Connecticut home when she sold it in 2012.
 
Mr. Simmons said that in hindsight, he wishes he had kept more of the pieces that also all belonged to Miss Moore. But he and his wife have still taken with them a greater appreciation of Miss Moore.
 
“We bought the lot to sell and make a profit, but the more research we did, the more we came to appreciate her,” he said. “She was quite the pioneer to have lived the life she did. She was pretty amazing, pretty phenomenal.”
 
Jcshearer2@comcast.net