Rebecca O'Conner Hunt Moulder

Rebecca O'Conner Hunt Moulder writer, age 96, died on September 30, 2006 in Tucson. She was born August 4, 1910 in Knoxville, Tennessee. As a child, she lived in many different towns in Alabama, Florida, Virginia and the Carolinas. Her father was a civil engineer working on building the Southern Railway. She graduated from Jacksonville, Florida High School in 1926, and attended the University of Tennessee for two years. During the Depression, Rebecca worked in journalism and merchandising in Memphis, Washington, D.C., and New York City. She was married first to John Franklin Osborne, a reporter and war correspondent for Time magazine. Her second marriage was to Wilbur Jay Moulder, economist with the Tennessee Valley Authority (deceased, Tucson, 1987). She moved to Tucson in 1965, because the climate greatly helped her severe arthritis. In 1970 Rebecca enrolled in the University of Arizona, graduating in 1973 with a BA in American History, and in 1975 with a MA in Journalism. Rebecca wrote three books. The first was about her great-uncle, Major Thomas O'Conner, who had been a soldier for the South in the Civil War. The book, May the Sod Rest Lightly, traced his Irish roots to relatives who fought during the American Revolution. Rebecca's next book was called Jenny Mitchel: Young Irelander. It was about a woman who took part in the Irish rebellion against England in 1848. Rebecca traveled to Ireland six times to do research. She found that Jenny and her husband (Irish revolutionary John Mitchel) had been sentenced to exile in Australia for their part in the rebellion. The book tells of their adventures while traveling to America, and eventually the South with their children to start a new life. After working on the book for ten years, it was published in Ireland. She also wrote her memoirs about her struggles during the Depression and especially about her participation in desegregation activities in Tennessee during the Civil Rights Movement. The title of her memoirs is Right in the Middle of the Sidewalk. She got the name from a Peanuts cartoon in which Pigpen refuses to go to camp because he is happy to sit on the sidewalk and be a part of the exciting world around him. Rebecca said, "That's where I've lived my life - right in the middle of the sidewalk." She leaves one daughter, Frances Valentine Moulder, of New Hartford, Connecticut; son-in-law, Peter Anderheggen and stepdaughters-in-law, Shantia Anderheggen and Zoe Anderheggen and her Tucson family of companions and friends, including Guadalupe Carroll and Andres Carroll, William Lang, Rachel McGlynn, Joyce Berry, Wendy Tulino, Katie Rumney, and many kind caregivers and good friends at the Handmaker Assisted Living facility which had been her home in recent years. She will be buried at Old Gray Cemetery in Knoxville, Tennessee. A private memorial will be held at Handmaker. Arrangements by BRING'S BROADWAY CHAPEL, 6910 E. Broadway.