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Laura Belle Moore was the second child of C.W. and Catherine Minear Moore. The first of their children to be born in Boise City, Laura began her long, prosperous, and interesting life on August 4, 1869. Educated in public schools in Boise, she continued her education in Massachusetts at Bradford Junior College and then at Northwestern University in Illinois, where she received a diploma in elocution in 1890. As a girl, she assisted her mother in entertaining at their Grove Street home. It was the beginning of decades of gracious living and elegant hospitality for which she was known all her life: dinner parties, bridge parties, New Year’s soirees, and her famous afternoon high teas. Although she was sheltered from life’s crudities by her father, and later by her husband, Laura stretched beyond her roots to read, travel and become acquainted with people and subjects far beyond her Boise home. On October 26, 1898, Laura married John William Cunningham at her parents’ home on Warm Springs Avenue. They enjoyed forty-eight years together, sharing mutual tastes and exhibiting gentility toward each other until the end. In 1907 they toured Europe for three months with Lyman and Nellie Kendall in the Kendalls’ new motor car, along with a chauffeur who went along to make repairs. They moved to New York shortly thereafter where Laura continued to develop fine tastes in furniture, clothing, and objets d’art. She especially was fond of Chinese antiques. After her mother’s death in 1911, Laura urged Will to return to her father’s Boise home to look after him. Will graciously conceded, and they established residency at 1109 Warm Springs which continued the rest of their lives. Will became a vice president of the Idaho First National Bank, established by Laura’s father C.W. Moore and others. J.W. Cunningham was a stabilizing force during the bank closure in 1932 when he left all their personal funds in the bank during its closure. The Cunninghams enjoyed traveling to California, Hawaii, the Oregon coast, and the East coast. In 1928 they took another extensive tour of Europe, this time meeting Dr. Harry S. Bettis and his son Laurence Moore Bettis there. Laura purchased a chandelier, dishes, clothes, and other items. She took extensive notes on history, culture, language, and sites during her tour. They traveled first cabin aboard the SS Roma, a fabulous luxury liner. In 1930 Laura added a large sunroom on the southeast corner of her Warm Springs house and painted it jade green, a dark forest green color. She consulted with Cornelia Conger, Fanny Cobb, Nellie Kendall, and later, in the 1940s, with Cornelia Hart Farrer, on issues of decoration and the purchase of furnishings, draperies, vases, and other accoutrements. Gardening was one of her passions. She personally oversaw the planting and care of her extensive garden behind the family home on Warm Springs Avenue. Three gardeners worked for her keeping the lawn and gardens. Maude M. Karker (1875-1964) was Laura Cunningham’s cook for years. Karker is buried at the Moore family plot at Morris Hill Cemetery. “Aunt Laura couldn’t build a sandwich by herself,” her grand nephew Harry Bettis said, “but she could tell someone else how to do an elegant chafing dish entrée.” She and Mr. Cunningham were accustomed to dressing formally each evening and being served in the dining room.
Laura’s favorite color was pink. She had beautiful linens, all
monogrammed, “LMC”, hand towels, bath towels, small rugs, bedspreads,
handkerchiefs, and pillows. Most of her silver was also monogrammed. Her public legacy, however, focuses on her great generosity with time and money for her favorite causes: the Red Cross, the Children’s Home, and Boise Junior College. During World War II there was a huge hospital at Gowen Field, south of Boise. Mrs. Cunningham sponsored and led a group of women called “The Grey Ladies” under the auspices of the Red Cross. Much like today’s hospital auxiliaries, The Grey Ladies made wounded servicemen comfortable during their rehabilitation stay before they were sent to Europe to fight. Accidents were incurred during local training. Laura Cunningham served as a member of the board of the Children’s Home Society of Idaho for over thirty years, continuing the friendship of one of its founding fathers, her own father, C.W. Moore. Laura gave ample donations of time and money, and kept close track of the administrative details, the welfare of individual children, and the activities of the Home. She was an honorary member of the board at the time of her death. Boise Junior College was one of her favorite institutions. When she died on August 16, 1963, the president of the college, Eugene B. Chaffee, said: In the passing of Mrs. J.W. Cunningham, Boise has lost
her first lady. She had been a resident of the city for her entire life which
covered a span of years roughly that of the city of Boise from the time it was a
village of 500 to the present. She grew up with this city, and has given
generously to it all her life. Every major cultural and civic organization has
felt the support that her hand has provided. Mrs. Cunningham was
not only a lovely lady, she was also a gracious and self-effacing in everything
she did. She was young in spirit, flexible in her ideas, and one of the greatest
friends of Boise Junior College and the city ever had. She started the movement
toward superior pipe organs in Idaho when she gave the J.W. Cunningham Memorial
Organ, a decade ago to Boise Junior College. She has given many scholarships to
students attending this college during that same period.
The city and the college have lost a great friend and humanitarian. I
personally have lost the never failing support she has given to every activity
of Boise Junior College. Laura Moore Cunningham had the attributes of a truly
great lady. She lived for others. (Quoted in the Idaho Statesman,
August 17, 1963.)
Her will set up the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation which continues to
give scholarships annually at the College of Idaho and Boise State University
and award grants to numerous other causes deemed worthy by its trustees (a
niece, a grand-niece, and a grand-nephew). Upon her death, the City of Boise
received acreage south of her home where the Laura Moore Cunningham Arboretum
was established to grow trees for the city’s parks. --Carol L. MacGregor (1990) Sources: Bettis, Harry L. Conversations with the author. Bettis, Laurence Moore. Tape-recorded interviews and conversations with the author. Cunningham, Laura Moore. Personal memorabilia in the collection and in the possession of the family. The Papers
The Laura Moore Cunningham papers constitute the largest portion of the
Moore-Cunningham-Bettis collection, filling six boxes. They are divided into
eight series outlined below. The papers include letters from friends and
relatives, letters she wrote home during her European trips (1907 and 1928),
notes and diaries from those trips, literary compositions, other school papers,
cooking and gardening notes, receipts for furnishings for the Moore-Cunningham
mansion, and materials relating to Mrs. Cunningham’s philanthropic and civic
activities. Some notable individual items include the prophecy of the Boise High
School Class of 1887, letters of introduction (1928) by Senator William E. Borah
(to take along to Europe), souvenir booklets from trans-Atlantic cruise ships,
case studies (anonymous samples) from the Idaho Children’s Home, and reports
Mrs. Cunningham wrote for the Red Cross and Columbian Club. Laura Moore Cunningham’s correspondents, mainly women, include out-of-town friends and many of the leaders of Boise business and society in the first half of the twentieth century. Most of the correspondence consists of letters to Mrs. Cunningham; there are few letters by her except in the European trip files (Boxes 5 and 6). A good number of the letters to her were written on hotel and steamship stationery; there are also examples of black-bordered mourning stationery (Mary Borah and Fanny Cobb files). Family members represented include grand nephew Harry L. Bettis and niece Margaret Moore Howell. The correspondence series also contains Mrs. Cunningham’s own letters to her husband written in 1913. Letters to Laura Moore Cunningham from her father (C.W Moore), mother (Catherine Minear Moore), and husband (J.W. Cunningham) are filed with their own papers (Box 1). The file of Ann Morrison correspondence contains a typescript of Karl Paine’s eulogy of Mrs. Morrison. Other correspondents include Nellie B. Kendall, whose husband is represented in J.W. Cunningham’s papers, and Francis Guzak, a U.S. Army officer in post-World War II Germany who wrote often of political conditions in that occupied country. He was in Boise during World War II and remembered Jimmy Stewart, who served in the same squadron at Gowen Field: “He really used to get mad when the boys called him Slim” (19 June 1949). Mrs. Cunningham’s file of travel memorabilia from her 1928 European trip (Box 6) reflect travel in the grand style in the interwar period, while her literary papers and committee/philanthropic files (Boxes 4 and 5) document the activities of a clubwoman and civic activist. One of the committee reports by Mrs. Cunningham preserved in the collection is that of the Columbian Club’s Town and Village Improvement Committee, which she chaired, 1903-1904 (Box 5, Folder 10). Container List Series I: Biographical MaterialBox 2: Biographical Material Folder 1 Biographical material Series II: Family Correspondence Box 2: Family CorrespondenceFolder 3 Harry
L. Bettis: 1947-1959 Series III: Correspondence Box 2: CorrespondenceFolder 9 Ailshie,
Margaret Cobb Box 3: Correspondence Folder
1 Jackson, Mrs. C.H.:
Undated Series IV: Personal Papers Box 4: Personal Papers Folder 1 Diaries and
Address Books: Listing Series V: Education and StudyBox 4: Education and Study Folder
14 Early Education (Julia
Capwell) Box 5: Education and Study Folder 1
Literary Papers Series VI: Clubs and PhilanthropiesBox 5: Clubs and Philanthropies Folder 8
Boise Junior College:
Pipe Organ: 1952-1953 Europe, 1907Box 5: Travel Notes and memorabilia Folder
24 Letters to Parents Europe, 1928
Box 6: Travel Notes and Memorabilia Folder
1 Correspondence:
Travel Advice Other TravelBox 6: Travel Notes and Memorabilia Folder 17
California: Various Dates Box 7: Books and Diaries European Travel Diary: 1907 European Travel Diary: 1928 Notebook of Travel Advice: 1928 Address Book: 1957-1963 Desk Diary/Address Book: 1957 Desk Diary: 1959 Desk Diary: 1960 Desk Diary: 1961 Europe by Automobile (ca. 1927) The Emerald Coast of Brittany (1906) A Diagrammatic Road Map of Central Europe, by Wood McMurtry (ca. 1907) The U.C.T. Transportation Guide (1911) Return to Moore-Cunningham-Bettis main page Return to Special Collections homepage For comments or questions about this page, contact: Special Collections Department This page last changed: 9 September 2004 |
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