MOON, Cleo Margaret (HANTHORNE)
MOON, HANTHORNE
Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 12/31/2015 at 13:47:21
Biography ~ Cleo Margaret (Hanthorne) Moon
February 19, 1904 ~ July 25, 2000Cleo M. Hanthorne Moon - Known as Graceland's "poet laureate," Cleo Hanthorne Moon established herself at the college as a librarian, teacher and author of several poems about Graceland.
[She was born February 19, 1904 in Eagle City, Oklahoma.] After completing her bachelor's degree in English literature at Oklahoma College for Women in 1926, Hanthrone taught at high schools in Oklahoma for four years. She then moved to Lamoni and became a speech, English, and physical education teacher at the high school from 1930 to 1935.
Hanthorne never considered a career as a librarian until she joined the Graceland employee ranks in the fall of 1935 to each literature and serve on the library staff. She then completed her M.A. in English literature at Oklahoma University in 1936, and obtained a B.S. in library science at Columbia University in 1943.
Hanthorne assumed the librarian role full-time in 1940, leaving in 1945 after her marriage to Willard Moon. During the next 11 years, she raised and sold parakeets and opened a ceramics business called Moon's Pottery Shack.
She returned to Graceland in 1956 as head librarian and to teach creative writing. During her Graceland career, Moon wrote the poetry book The Bell's Tower's Eye (1944), led the work on the publication Graceland's Firsts (1945), helped design the Frederick Madison Smith Library, and served as sponsor for the Acacia yearbook and Graceland Tower newspaper. She left the library after retiring as professor emerita in 1969, but returned to teach some classes part-time.
When two new women's houses were created upon the opening of Walker Hall in 1994, the members of one of those housing units named themselves Hanthorne House in honor of the former librarian.
Note: Mrs. Moon died on July 25, 2000, at Lamoni, Iowa. Interment was made at Rose Hill Cemetery, Lamoni, Iowa.
SOURCE: Edwards, Paul M. "The Hilltop Where. . . An Informal History of Graceland College." Pp. 130. Venture Foundation. Lamoni IA. 1972.
Goehner, David. "The Graceland College Book of Knowledge: From A To Z." p. 428. Herald House. Independence MO. 1997.
Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, December of 2015
Decatur Biographies maintained by Constance McDaniel Hall.
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