Rev. Robert S. Moore, 83, retired dean of students at the Chicago Theological Seminary, died Thursday, Feb. 15, of lymphoma in the University of Chicago Hospitals. Born and raised in Michigan, Rev. Moore graduated from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry, but decided to pursue theology at the University of Chicago, graduating in 1942. From 1942 to 1955, he was a pastor at Methodist churches in Wisconsin, Vermont and New York. He also served as a chaplain at Wayne State University in Detroit. In 1955, he returned to Chicago Theological Seminary, where he worked primarily as the dean of students for 20 years, offering spiritual guidance and handing out discipline tempered with love, his son David R. said. “He was ministering to all the young ministers. And believe me, the problems of having young people in dormitories have never changed. They were spiritual-minded, but they were still young and frisky.” He later was pastor at the former Elsdon United Methodist Church on the Southwest Side and the Hegewish United Methodist Church, retiring in the mid-1980s. He was involved in civil rights causes and successfully fought to desegregate Hyde Park’s elementary schools in the 1960s. Other survivors include his wife, Rev. Viola L. Moore; another son, Henry E.; two daughters, Kristin L. Hay and Rachel Moore; and five grandchildren. Private services will be held Saturday at Rev. Moore’s Hyde Park home, where he lived from 1955 until his death. A memorial service will be held at 10 a.m. March 17 in the First Unitarian Church of Hyde Park, 5650 S. Woodlawn Ave., Chicago.
