Verda was born the fifth child of eight children. One older brother had died before she was born. She had one surviving older brother and one younger brother, the rest were sisters. A pivotal event in her life was that her mother died when Verda was only nine years old. Her oldest sister, Martha, (Mattie) became the surrogate mother to her siblings. They lived in poor circumstances. The grandfather from South Carolina, who had brought Verda's father to the farm in Missouri was most likely a supporter of the Confederacy so whatever monies they had, the values were lost in the war. Her father was a farmer and a teamster. One sister in her later years said that they each had one dress so when the dress was being washed they had to stay in bed until it was dried. They wore their one pair of shoes only for school. They of course raised a garden and "put up" (canned), their own produce. At sometime, not sure when, her father remarried a sister-in-law when her husband, his brother, died. The family moved to Washington State, near Lester, where her brother and father did logging and her older sisters cooked meals for the loggers.
Except for the brother, Sherman, the family relocated to Tacoma. Verda met and married Earle Charles More who was a teacher at that time. He became a fireman who moved up to become Battalion Chief, (see his bio by hitting the hot button on this site for her spouse.) Verda was a efficient home maker. She continued to use her skills for gardening, and canning. They had apple, plum, cherry, and pear trees, plus marionberries, blueberries, and the garden had potatoes, corn, carrots, beets, onions, radishes etc. She and her husband enjoyed fishing and camping and traveling. Verda was conscious of being frugal with the money given to her by her husband for housekeeping and she often saved more than a full cookie jar that she hid away unless some niece in the family needed a little financial help. She then would be more than generous after the niece was sworn to secrety on its location. (After she had died hidden money was found in her dress patterns.) Verda was not very talkative but in order to learn to overcome this she took a class on storytelling. Toward the end of her life she had fallen and broken her arm and her husband had cancer. He took his own life in order not to be a burden. They had been married nearly sixty years. Very shortly after that she caught puenmonia. She died at Good Samaritan Hospital in Puyallup, Wa.