E. L. Moore's Legacy in the 21st Century: Ma’s Place and a newly discovered collection of E. L. Moore built models

[Private Collection - Posted with permission of the owner]

The last 3 months, and especially the last couple of weeks, have been exciting. To make a long story short, after some inspired detective work by Debra, working with a vital clue from Vince, not to mention the generous assistance of many longtime friends and people who were previously strangers, I’ve been able to connect with a gentleman who has a large collection of models built by E. L. Moore. That is, original E. L. Moore models actually made by him; many of which were the prototypes for a few of his construction articles.

I’m respecting the collector’s request to remain anonymous, and he has generously allowed me to post some photos of his collection as part of the E. L. Moore’s Legacy in the 21^st Century series [1]. I’m starting with Ma’s Place as it was the focus of the Age of Plastics posts which can be found here, here, and here.

[This is how Ma's Place appeared in the January '67 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman - after 48 years the model is looking as it did when first published]

E. L. Moore’s Ma’s Place build appeared in the January 1967 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman. 

[Private collection - Posted with permission of the owner {added to post on 1 Feb '15}]

As well as the Age of Plastics posts, I discussed the article’s use of storytelling to enhance the construction details in the Twenty-five Years at the Movies post.

[Private collection - Posted with permission of the owner]

The American Civil War era figures in the photos are repurposed Airfix models. They weren’t made by E. L. Moore. His article featured Ma Spumoni, her husband George, Uncle Charlie and Pistachio Jr from an early-20th century rural universe, and were represented in his article’s photos by figures from Weston.

[Private collection - Posted with permission of the owner]

It was obviously well cared for over the years given the good condition of the model today.

[Private collection - Posted with permission of the owner]

It appears that the model is still in original condition: Mr. Moore makes note in his article that the house "except for the front, is a bit shabby, faded green intermingling with plain weathered surfaces" and the bright red front was "bait" for the customers. It looks like he used his technique of drawing with a sharp pencil to scribe in the roof shingles.

[Private collection - Posted with permission of the owner]

[1 Feb '15 update: The model is signed on the bottom, as shown in the photo below, and dated 10-1-65. The article appeared in Jan '67, so there was a little lag between model completion and publication.]

[Private collection - Posted with permission of the owner {added to post on 1 Feb '15}]

Digressions

[1] Added 31 Jan ’15: A little while after I had put this post online Debra gave it a read and told me it made her wonder if Ma’s Place is actually a thinly disguised version of E. L. Moore’s boyhood home. He was born to modest circumstances on a farm in southern Michigan, and she thought the model might be some sort of stylized embodiment of the most memorable aspects of his old home and family. Does any of this have a grain of truth? Did his mother sell food or home cooking from the house? Maybe a neighbour did? I don’t know any of this, but it’s an interesting thought and when she told me it reminded me of some things we saw on the episode of Anthony Bourdain’s tv show Parts Unknown where he visits Detroit. We watched it over the Christmas holidays. It was excellent.

Among other things in the show, Bourdain visits a few restaurants run from people’s houses. Maybe ‘restaurant’ isn’t the best term to describe them as they are simply people offering great food for sale out of their own homes to others in the area. It was this part that seemed very like what E. L. Moore was doing with Ma’s Place, and the plastic version takes the idea even further. CNN’s got some clips about a couple of those places. Take a look at the clips about Pupusa House, Greedy Greg’s, and after you’re done eating don’t forget to visit the Packard Plant: all here at this CNN link.