Vernon Moore: Richard Doherty

A 1991 portrait of Vernon Moore in his Oak Cliff grocery store. Photo by Richard Doherty

Dr. Rodney Moore, the Oak Cliff-raised Parkland obstetrician/gynecologist who delivered some 6,000 babies over a 44-year career, has died.

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He was 87.

Moore’s parents moved to Oak Cliff when he was 2 months old, and they owned Moore’s Grocery near Rosemont Elementary School.

Rodney Moore worked at the store during medical school.

He told the Advocate in 2010:

My dad always kept 30 to 40 chickens in a coop, in the back of the store. When customers requested, I would go to the back and kill and dress a chicken, so customers would have a fresh fryer on-demand. This could be done in about 8 to 10 minutes, before they checked out. Because of my contribution to helping each week, Mom and Dad provided Mary and me with groceries for our family through those years in medical school.

Moore died Aug. 19 of colon cancer, according to the Dallas Morning News.

Moore graduated from Sunset High School and what is now the University of North Texas. He served in the United States Navy during the Korean War, and he graduated from UT Southwestern Medical Center in 1960.

His wife of 19 years, Sharon Blanks Moore, told the newspaper that Moore was the first obstetrician in Dallas to offer epidural pain relief during childbirth.

Moore’s first wife and the mother of his four children, Mary Moore, died in 1998. His widow, Sharon Blanks Moore, had known Dr. Moore since she was his children’s teacher at Rosemont.

A memorial for Moore is at 10 a.m. Saturday in Truett Chapel at First Baptist Church Dallas.