Shiloh Baptist celebrates Ocean City’s Mother Moore as she turns 104
OCEAN CITY — Juanita B. Moore lives by a simple credo, “Let go and let God.”
It has helped her live to her 104th birthday, which was celebrated Tuesday, March 11, 2025 at Shiloh Baptist Church at 7 E. Seventh St. in Ocean City.
Friends and supporters gathered at the church to surprise Mother Moore after her caregiver, the Rev. Gregory Johnson, took her there instead of home after a doctor’s appointment.
“It’s wonderful,” she said of the party. “No one gave me any inkling of it. The Rev. Johnson brought me back, kept his mouth sealed and never said a word. When I walked in, what a wonderful surprise. God is good.”
It has been a number of years since Mother Moore — that’s how members of the congregation refer to her — has been to the church in person because her mobility is limited, unlike her mind.
“She’s been a rock in our Black community and she always participated in our church affairs. Not only in our own church, but in the other churches. It’s been a pleasure,” said Joan Robertson. “I honor her because she is like a pillar and everybody calls her Mother because she is like a mother to anyone she meets, and I’m just so glad I met her in my lifetime.”
“She is just so smart and she gives such good advice. And she has her favorite scriptures she is always quoting and she always says, ‘Ask and it shall be given’ from Matthew 7 and 8. Those are her favorite scriptures,” said Kathy Jerkins, wife of Shiloh pastor the Rev. Paul C. Jerkins.
“At the end of it she always says, ‘Let go and let God.’ That’s been my motto. Since she began saying it I took it up because I want to let go and let God. That’s what I live by,” Jerkins added.
“Even at her age she gives such good advice and we just love her,” she said. “She doesn’t come out much because her legs won’t allow her, but because she just came from the doctor today, Gregory Johnson brought her right over here to be with us. We wanted to surprise her. Everybody who loves her is here. She is such a blessing.”
Moore said she was born March 11, 1921, in Virginia to Geraldine and Charles Brown, but raised by her grandparents, George and Sarah Brown. She graduated from Ingleside Seminary in Burkeville, Va., a school built in 1892 to educate African-American girls.
She came to Ocean City in 1955, married Jesse Moore in 1960 and joined Shiloh Baptist Church. Her husband passed in 1981.
“When I graduated,” Mother Moore said, “I went to the Pocono Mountains to work at a Christian boys camp. I left there, I came to Princeton, I worked in Princeton, and from Princeton to Trenton to Ocean City.
“That was years and years ago. That’s when I met and married my husband, Jesse Moore,” she said. “He and his friend from Somers Point worked at First National Bank.”
She worked privately for families in Ocean City.
She has lived in the same home for well over a half-century.
“The house that I’m in on Mercer Place, I’ve been in the same house, the same street,” she said.
As Kathy Jerkins said, Mother Moore is fond of scripture. When interviewed at her party, she was quick to turn to that.
“You have to remember that He said ‘I’ll never leave you or forsake you.’ He also said, ‘Ask, you shall receive.’ ‘Seek, ye shall find.’ “I have the most wonderful peace. It’s just wonderful,” she said. “Let go and let God.”
She worries about the young people.
“One thing is they need to go to school and to take these things away,” Mother Moore said, looking down and using her hands to demonstrate how kids are so focused on their cell phones.
“So much has changed. The young people, I pray for them today,” she said, wondering aloud how many are familiar with the Ten Commandments. “They should read the last chapter, Revelations, in the Bible. You’ll see all of the bad things that are happening. Very few people want to believe, but it’s coming true. Time is winding down, but not soon.”
Although that may sound ominous, Mother Moore wasn’t speaking with anger, but with heartfelt concern. She kept smiling as she was chatting with the people at the party who wanted to greet her. All were singing her praises.
Pastor Jerkins had high praise for his oldest congregant.
“She is the most unbelievably fantastic individual you want to meet. She is the most loving, gracious and kind, and I’ll tell you what, she is on top of everything,” he said. “At her age, sit down with her. She is encouraging and most of all when I go over to visit her, she knows everything that is going on in the community. Trust me. But then she will encourage you if she hears something that is not as well given. She’ll turn around and say, ‘Baby, don’t worry about it. It’s all in God’s hands.’
“So she has been a light to the community. She’s definitely been a light to this church. She’s also an inspiration and a light to me,” Pastor Jerkins said. “She’s just a beautiful person. I can’t imagine, looking at my 65 years, compared to her 104 years. That’s just amazing.”
He added, “And you look at how the world has changed in our lifetime; can you imagine how it’s changed for her? It’s crazy. The fact is, for her to remember everything and be able to talk in total coherency about her history and her life, it’s unbelievable. At her age, you don’t see that. We’re just thankful to have her.”
Three women — Cola McClellan, mother of state Assemblyman Antwan McClellan, Portia Thompson and Mary Miles — presented a plaque. Thompson read it aloud: “Senior Mother Juanita Moore, we celebrate your 104th birthday March 11, 2025. Today we recognize all you have added to each of our lives. Proverbs 31:31 …. Let her Own works praise her in the gates. With Love, The Mothers and Members of Shiloh Baptist Church, Rev. Paul Jerkins, Pastor. Senior Mother Moore: Let Go and Let God.”
“You have done a lot in my life. You told us how to act, how for a lady to present herself, how she is supposed to respect others. I’m so grateful for you. Thank you for your 104 years. You’ve been a blessing in my life. I thank you for just being in my family life,” Miles told her. “You’re a virtuous lady. That’s what God wants us to be. He wants us to be real, not pretend to be someone else. You are just that person, so I thank God for you and I rejoice with you being here today.”
“We’ve all come a long way, starting out right here at Shiloh,” McClellan told her. “The young ones and the older ones and she was a mother then and she’s still a mother. I want to appreciate all the young girls who came out to visit her today because she and I have seen all of them grow up together. … Thank you mother, I love you.”
Her son, the assemblyman, smiled broadly when talking about Mother Moore.
“It’s unbelievable because she still has all her faculties and can still tell me what I’m doing wrong on occasion because she’s reading that paper and saying, ‘You did this and you should have been doing that,’” Assemblyman McClellan said, laughing. “She’s known me since I was 3 years old running around these churches. She’s like a second mother to me and I’m able to celebrate her as she celebrates me in all my victories, so I can’t complain about a thing. I love being here in my home church to celebrate with her.”
The Rev. Johnson also smiled when talking about Mother Moore. He has been caring for her since Superstorm Sandy hit the island in 2012.
“She is strong, determined, although she is 104 she can count, multiply. One of her famous sayings is, ‘I’m kicking, but not kicking high.’ We talk every day,” he said.
“Life has been good to her. You learn a lot. There’s a secret to her life. She loves to chew on her snuff (Copenhagen tobacco). When you get that age, she tells me, ‘At this age I can do what I want to do.’ She is a good lady.
“This is the first time she has been at the church in years because of her health,” he said, noting he regularly takes her out in his car. “We just ride around town. She is the joy of my day.
“I’m happy for her. Hopefully I can get to 104 and she can live on to be much, much older. She is in good shape,” he added, referencing that morning’s doctor’s appointment. “Her and Dr. Raab, they go back and forth. She says something to him, he says something to her and they both laugh.
“She says that her prayers and her snuff is what keeps her going. I guess all of us should buy some snuff. She’s not giving that up,” Johnson said, laughing.
– By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
