John Moore Sheldon Esq Obituary
On Thursday, July 26, 2018, the world lost a gentle, kind and comical soul: John (“Johnny”) Sheldon Moore, who passed away in Denver, CO at the age of 86. Johnny was a devoted husband, father and friend. I think he would have liked for me to put in a joke relating to his struggle with Alzheimer’s here, but he forgot to give me the specifics.
Born on March 4, 1932 in Cambridge, MA to Robert and Eleanor (Turner) Moore, Johnny was the youngest of four children (brothers Robin and Billy, and sister Marcia). He graduated from Harvard University in 1954, received his Juris Doctor from Stanford University, and was a member of the New York, Massachusetts and California bars. He was married to Diane Edwina Beehler, and together they raised one daughter, Katie.
Johnny would give you the shirt off his back, and was forever looking for ways to help those around him. After serving in the Navy, he was an environmental lawyer - always trying to save the underdog (or under-frog, or under-rainforest, if you will). Even into his early 80s, he traveled to D.C. to lobby for the environment. Johnny was never happier than when he was boating, fishing and spending time with friends and family on Cuttyhunk Island, MA. He passionately worked to cultivate the Cuttyhunk Historical Society and the Cuttyhunk Library. After spending a lifetime in New England, John moved with Diane to Denver for the last year of his life, to be closer to his daughter. He was ecstatic to get to live near NOAA, and he fell in love with prairie dogs. He was also thrilled to return to the same mountains where he once had the opportunity to ski with Stein Eriksen. Over the past months, he received the most amazing care imaginable from the University of Colorado ACE Team (Acute Care of the Elderly), and the team there will always have a special place in his family’s heart for the compassion they showed him.
Johnny would like for you to know that he had a good run, and he is looking forward to the next glorious chapter. He received a call, a sort of offer you can’t refuse, for an appointment he remembered to keep. He departed on his favorite railroad, and will be getting a huge sign-on bonus in the form of endless green meadows, a reunion with long-lost loved ones, the ability to walk for miles without arthritis pain, the best fishing imaginable and endless “lobstah” clambakes. It is a world in which seagulls fly and call overhead without ever stealing your dinner, where the Red Sox and Patriots never lose, where parking between the lines is recognized as a mere suggestion, and in which his fashion sense and recognition of the pointlessness of “right side out and tag in the back” is applauded, so that he can finally escape the loving eye-roll of his daughter. How could one possibly turn all of that down?
John is survived by his loving wife, Diane Beehler Moore (Denver, CO), his daughter, Dr. Katharine Moore (Denver, CO), his numerous nieces and nephews, and by the frogs, rainforests and lands that he fought so hard to protect
