Georgia Barr Moeller, aged 89, passed away January, 24, 2012, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. By her side were her beloved family.

Georgia was born June 1, 1922, in Wichita, Kansas, the daughter of the late George and Olive Tetsworth Barr, pioneer settlers in Gage, Oklahoma. In 1893 her grandfather John Barr and her father as an eleven year-old boy made the run into the Cherokee Outlet and staked their claim to land near Wolf Creek and what would eventually become the town of Gage in western Oklahoma. A hundred years later in 1993, the John Barr Homestead was designated an Oklahoma Centennial Farm by the Oklahoma State Historical Society for having been in the same family for a hundred years. Georgia and her daughters accepted the award at the ceremony held by the Society.

Georgia grew up in Gage during the Dust Bowl, but as a child enjoyed those years on her parents' farm, learning to swim in Wolf Creek, milking the cows with her father, learning how to shoot the twenty-two rifle she received for her tenth birthday, playing the drums in the high school band, picnicking with friends at Crystal Beach in Woodward.

Georgia was a graduate of Gage High School, Southwestern State University in Weatherford, Oklahoma, and received a Master's Degree in English literature from Sul Ross State College in Alpine, Texas.

An outstanding student, at seventeen in 1939, Georgia enrolled at Southwestern College in Weatherford at a time when few young women attended college. While at Southwestern, she played snare drum in the college band and met and fell in love with her future husband Frederick Moeller, who played first chair trumpet. Frederick recounts the first time he entered the band room and saw the dark eyed, black-haired drummer as the moment he fell in love with the girl from Gage. They were married in August of 1941, and as a newly married couple listened with shock to the radio in December telling that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. They knew their life as carefree students was never going to be the same again.

Their first daughter, Linda Ann, was born in 1942, and Frederick joined the Army Air Force Band at Perrin Field, Texas, where daughters Lana Frederica and Diana Lee were born, and where the family spent the remainder of the war. As a keepsake, Georgia saved the ration books they were issued during the war and often told of sharing their ration stamps with others less fortunate because with three small children, her family received more ration stamps than many others. Sugar was a precious commodity then, and her sugar ration stamps allowed many birthday cakes to be made for those who might not have been able to have had a cake on their special day.

Following the war, Georgia became a high school English and history teacher and for forty years taught in Oklahoma and later at Hayes Middle School and Valley High School in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Georgia devoted her life to her family and to her career. She taught hundreds of young people who went on to attend college and become successful adults. She saw education as a precious gift not to be squandered. She loved poetry, read voraciously, and traveled to many interesting places. In Brazil she boated deep into the Amazon jungle and flew into the far northwestern reaches of the country. In Portugal she slept in a castle and crashed a Christmas Eve party of German tourists. From 1955 through 2005 she traveled extensively in Mexico from the wild little border town of Ojinaga to a white sand beach in San Carlos, Sonora, where her daughters have homes and where she watched one of her grandsons marry.
She loved roses, Godiva chocolates, picnics, the Duke University Blue Devils basketball team, and Marty Robbins, especially his rendition of "Rosa's Cantina." She wrote poetry and had a special group of poems she called "Fat Grandma Says."
Among Georgia's greatest joys were teaching her daughters and then her grandchildren. She was enormously proud of her daughters' accomplishments: Linda, Master's Degree in English and an attorney; Lana, Ph.D. Romance Languages and published author; Diana, Master's Degree in Speech, Communications, and Television, property management and loving caregiver to her mother during her battle with multiple myeloma.
Of the many gifts her daughters gave her, Georgia's most treasured gifts were her nine grandchildren. She attended their music performances and athletic events, sometimes flying or driving hundreds miles to watch them. She helped tutor a grandson's Academic Decathlon team and served as a master teacher after she retired. She read her grandchildren's essays, applauded their solos, cheered when they scored a goal or a basket, hugged them when their team lost a championship game. She saw them graduate from the university, go on to advanced degrees, and rewarding, widely varied careers. And then came eleven (and a twelfth on the way) great grandchildren upon whom she doted and whom she trusts as a bright legacy to the future.
In August of 2011 she and her husband Frederick celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary. She is survived by Frederick, her daughters Linda Ramsey of Farmington, New Mexico, Lana Harrigan and husband Ray of Albuquerque, and Diana Melendres and husband Art of Albuquerque, nine beloved grandchildren, their spouses, soon to be twelve great grandchildren, and her constant and beloved pug companion Coco. Georgia was preceded in death by her parents and her talented musician son-in-law Scott Ramsey. She will be deeply missed by countless friends, formers students, and family.
Services were held at Canterbury Episcopal Chapel in Albuquerque and burial will be in the Barr family plot in Gage, Oklahoma. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Oklahoma Historical Society (www.okhistory.org ), 800 Nazih Zuhdi Drive, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73105.