September 02, 2009
Doris Moss has led generations of Teton Valley students
LEFT: Berry pickin’ next to the ripening grain, Doris Moss shares her seasoned wisdom. Moss has witnessed many harvests of grain, raspberries, and students in Teton Valley. CITIZEN PHOTO / LIZA B. WILSONEveryone should have the opportunity to sit on a five-gallon bucket next to a grain field and listen to Doris Moss share memories while she picks raspberries. She is a wealth of seasoned knowledge, experience and wisdom earned through more than 85 years living and working as a farm wife, mother of seven, elementary school teacher, 4-H leader, church worker and community volunteer.
Rising in the early morning to tend to the milk cows, then off to make breakfast for the family, work did not stop there for Doris as she headed to teach at the Alta School only to return home at night to finish her day caring for her own family.
“You just keep going,” she said.
Family
If you are to “keep on going,” you have to start somewhere. Doris arrived in Teton Valley in the mid 1920’s, the sixth of ten children to Milford and Lucy Anna Kunz. As a teenager she caught the eye of her future husband, Ray Moss, when his brother, Reuel, was dating her sister, Ruby. World War II put this romance on hold for several years as Ray served his country in the Air Force. However, upon his return in 1946 the sparks were reignited.
They were soon married. Doris and Ray began farming for George Peacock before buying the Dalley place on State Line Road. Children came next with Lloyd Ray, named after his father, as the first of seven. LeRae was second in line adding a feminine twist to her father’s name again. Ray’s mother said to Doris, “Well, now you have all the kinds there are, a boy and a girl.”
But Doris and Ray just kept on going.
The next son could have been named Hoo- Ray, but instead they opted to linger longer with the “L’s”. And so it went with Lindsey, Lucy, Lane, Leslie and Lee. You can bet your lunch money that all those “L’s” weren’t always called by their own label.
Education
As Doris kept her hands full with a full house, she continued to pursue her education. She was already teaching having earned a two-year degree, but longed for more education. Between extension courses and one summer and winter at Utah State in Logan with all the little “L’s” in tow, in 1964 she realized her goal, earning a Bachelor’s Degree in Education.
Teaching at the two-room school in Alta was not just the basic reading, writing and arithmetic. It was a much more rounded education which included swimming and skiing, poetry and patriotism, singing and sewing, nature appreciation and most important, tender nurturing from their teacher, Mrs. Moss. She would go on to teach the children of students who were in her first classroom in Alta.
“I won’t believe most of what your child tells me about what goes on at home if you will do the same for the stories they may bring home about what goes on at school,” she would say to parents at conferences. Fair and practical, that’s how she went about everything.
After 26 years of being behind the scenes at the Alta School Christmas Operettas, she retired in 1986. She then was able to take a seat in front of the stage for the Alta School functions.
Community Service
Retirement by no means meant stop for Doris. No, for her retirement means, “just keep going.” She has devoted more time to volunteer work at the Teton Valley Hospital and the Teton Valley Museum. She spends time on genealogy and making quilts. Some could wonder which count is higher, the number of students she has taught or the number of quilts she has made.
Doris finished picking raspberries and I was richer for the time I spent on that five-gallon bucket in the presence of someone like her. She wanted to pay for the raspberries she picked from my patch, but what kind of price tag could you put on the morning that we had just spent together?
Later, I found that she had dropped off some baby quilts off for my new grand-babies as a thank you for the raspberries. There is no stopping Doris Moss. She will always, “just keep going.”
