Betty Moran

Betty Alden Richardson Moran, a retired NJ newspaper editor who championed education, protecting the environment, and voting, died of natural causes June 10 at Ginger Cove, a retirement community in Annapolis, MD, where she’d lived since 2005. She celebrated her 100th birthday on June 2.

She was the second oldest of four children born in Maplewood, NJ, to Elizabeth and Percy Bacon Richardson. Her artist father, a New England-born Mayflower descendent of John and Priscilla Alden, was a graduate of the NY Art Students League in the era of fellow alumni Georgia O’Keefe, Ben Shahn, and a vibrant group of American impressionist painters with whom he kept in regular contact in Metropolitan New York and Cape Cod, MA, throughout his life. As a result, Betty was a lifelong vacationer on Cape Cod, where she’d spent all of her summers as a child and young adult.

Betty was raised in a family of artists and writers and, when she lost her mother at a young age, mentored by an aunt who was one of the first women elected to the NJ legislature. She and her siblings were often pressed into helping their flamboyant aunt get out the vote in several Presidential and numerous local elections in and after the Great Depression. Following her aunt and her father, she took up the mantle of the importance of education, public service, and protecting the environment---themes about which she was passionate her entire life, especially as a respected local newspaper editor.

She graduated from Columbia High School, in Maplewood, NJ, then received a scholarship to –and graduated from--the secretarial program of the Katharine Gibbs School in New York City. At 23, Betty enlisted in the Army during WWII and graduated from Officers Candidate School in July 1943 as a Captain in the newly commissioned Women’s Army Corps (WAC), becoming one of the first women allowed to hold active duty status in the U.S. Army. As a public affairs specialist for the next three years, she was stationed at Hill Field, Utah, a major take-off and re-entry point for Army Air Corps pilots fighting in the War. She met her future husband, Peter J. Moran, Jr. at Hill Field, when he returned from flying 17 missions as a B-24 pilot in the European Theater. They married in 1946 at War’s end, when both left the service and returned to their East Coast roots. They settled first in South Orange, NJ, where their daughter, Cynthia, was born in 1947, and later moved to Berkeley Heights, NJ, where their son Peter J. III was born in 1952 and where they would live and be involved in their community for the next 54 years. They were active congregants of Christ Church in Summit, NJ.

After raising her young children, Betty returned to writing, doing publicity for the local schools and civic groups before joining the Dispatch, a weekly paper in Berkeley Heights and New Providence, in 1961. As the principal reporter and later editor of the paper, she devoted much of her professional time to covering the municipal workings of the two townships, while mentoring high school interns, many of whom went on to successful journalism careers.

In 2005, Betty and Pete moved to Annapolis, MD, to be closer to their children. Pete, a noted alcoholism and addiction counselor, died in 2007. Betty is survived by her daughter, Cynthia Moran (Scott McDonald) of Grasonville, MD, and son, Peter Moran (Sara) of Annapolis, MD, grandsons Kevin Moran of Beavercreek, OH, and Sean Moran of Atlanta, GA; step-grandchildren Kathryn Larson of Sagle, ID; Lucy Johnson Tubb of Dallas, TX; Bruce McDonald of Conroe, TX; Matt Brower of Timonium, MD; Lauren Brower of Baltimore, MD; sister-in-law, Anne Richardson of Washington, DC; and many great grandchildren, great-great grandchildren, nieces and nephews.

At a later date to be determined, Betty will be inurned with military honors at Arlington National Cemetery next to her husband. Remembrances in Betty’s name made be made to League of Women Voters of Berkeley Heights, New Providence and Summit, NJ (http://www.lwv-bhnps.org) or Christ Church Summit, NJ, Memorial Fund (https://ccsnj.breezechms.com/give/online).