Clement Vernon Moore

Clement Vernon Moore — known to everyone as Vernon — passed away on December 12, 2023, two months short of his 90th birthday. Vernon lived a long and eventful life, raising four kids with Angie, his wife of nearly 60 years, building a successful career in the furniture business, traveling around the country, including countless trips to Maui and the Pismo Beach dunes, perfecting his golf game, and keeping up with his siblings, other family members and friends he made along the way.

Vernon was born on February 2, 1934 in Mena, Arkansas, the third of eight children born to Hubert and Inez Moore. He spent his first 11 years in Arkansas and Oklahoma, often working alongside his father to help support the family. In 1945, the family headed west to California, joining relatives and friends who had already made the journey to find better opportunities. They lived in and around Merced, where Vernon graduated from high school in 1952.

He never talked about his studies, but Vernon did tell quite a few stories about drag racing on a rural dirt road that is now Olive Avenue. By his account, he usually won. One weekend, while hanging out with friends at a gas station at 16th and G streets, he caught the eye of Angie Cotta. A week later, mutual friends set them up on a date to Yosemite and they were together for nearly 60 years, until her death in 2013.

After marrying in 1955, Vernon and Angie lived in Southern California, where he inspected paint on new cars coming off the Ford assembly line. They lived in a small garage apartment and their first child, Sidney, was born there in 1956. After a year, the family returned to Merced, where Vernon’s brother-in-law, Wayne Hall, helped him get a job at McMahan’s Furniture.

Vernon and Angie spent about eight years in Merced and by 1960 had three more children, Greg, Janet and Brenda. The family settled in Madera a few years later, where Vernon managed the Madera McMahan’s store, became active in the Lions Club and picked up a new hobby: golf.

At McMahan’s, Vernon built an extremely successful career, starting out delivering furniture, then moving up to salesman, then store manager and then district manager of multiple stores in Central California. He retired a year after the furniture stores were bought by a national chain. His stores were such high performers that the new owners tried to persuade him to stay, but he was ready for the next chapter. Vernon made many friends among his co-workers and kept up with them over the years, trading memories and gossip over lunches and during lengthy phone calls.

Vernon and Angie first retired to Twain Harte, where they had turned a ramshackle cabin into a beautiful three-story home with help from their children and others. They loved their time in the mountains, but eventually moved to Chowchilla, to a home alongside the 13th tee at Pheasant Run Golf Club. Daughter Janet and son Greg also lived in the neighborhood, providing a lot of company and support to their parents. After Angie passed away in 2013, Vernon continued to live in their home for nearly a decade before moving in with Janet in fall 2023. He could be found on the golf course as many as five days a week, often playing with son Greg and son-in-law Don --- as recently as two months before his passing.

Vernon loved talking to people and they seemed to love talking to him. He was physically strong, probably from moving couches and refrigerators in his early days, and he was great with numbers, probably from calculating commissions on prospective sales. He enjoyed many extended stays with Janet and Don in Maui, racing across the dunes in Pismo with Sid and Greg, occasional camping and fishing trips with brothers Arnold and Jerry, and lots of golf, with family, friends and neighbors. Perhaps owing to his Southern roots, he appreciated a good chicken fried steak and biscuits and gravy, and owing to Angie’s roots, sopas at the annual Portuguese festas.

Vernon was especially proud of his kids, but gave credit to Angie for raising them. He took the loss of Angie hard, and the too-early loss of Sid in 2022 even harder, but he kept going as the family patriarch, and his big shoes — size 13 — will be hard to fill.

In addition to Angie and Sid, Vernon was preceded in death by his parents and his sisters Vernell, Fern and Elizabeth and brother Gene. He is survived by son Greg and his wife JoAnn Moore, daughter Janet and husband Don Holt, daughter Brenda and husband Royal Calkins, and daughter-in-law Patty Moore, three grandchildren, four great-grandchildren, brother Arnold Moore and his wife Patricia, sister Betty Allen and her husband Gary, and brother Jerry Moore and his wife Debbie, as well as many nieces, nephews, step-grandchildren and step-great-grand-children.

A luncheon celebration of life for both Vernon and his son Sid will be held from 1-3 p.m. Saturday, January 6, 2024 at Ravello’s Event Center, 560 W. 18th Street, Merced.