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Marybelle Moon, 85, Devoted Teacher, Special Education Pioneer

Posted on: Sunday, 11 September 2005, 18:00 CDT

Longtime special education teacher Marybelle Wood Moon could find what others missed.

"She saw the worth in every child, especially the most needy," said her daughter, Marcie Moon of Cape Porpoise. "She knew they all could develop skills. They all could have a job."

Mrs. Moon died Friday at age 85. For 33 years she taught children with special needs and developmental disabilities. Twenty-two of those years were spent working in School Administrative District 71, serving Kennebunk and Kennebunkport.

Even after her retirement in 1996, Mrs. Moon continued to teach as a volunteer and a substitute in the Sanford school system. Her work touched not only her students, her daughter said, but many others she inspired to follow her in the field of special education.

Mrs. Moon was born in Toledo, Ohio, on June 18, 1920, to S. Bryant and Lois Morton Wood. A vacation home on Kennebunk Beach that had been in the family since 1893 brought the family to Maine every summer.

Mrs. Moon always loved children, and to pass the time during her college years she set up a play school for the children of other Kennebunk vacationers. She graduated from Wheelock College with a degree in early childhood education.

Mrs. Moon married Eben Moon, and together they owned and operated the Seaview House on Kennebunk Beach from 1950 to 1958. They had two daughters, Marcie and Laurie Moon, who is deceased. Eben Moon died in 1987.

Mrs. Moon started her teaching career in Ohio and in the early 1960s switched her focus to special education. It was a decade before the passage of the federal law that required schools to educate children with special needs alongside their peers, and it was a developing field.

In 1973, Mrs. Moon came back to Kennebunk to run the primary school special education program for the district.

She called her classroom "The Pumpkin Patch" to avoid the stigmatizing label of "special education." In it, she tried to find the individual key to teaching each student.

When she was named district teacher of the year in 1976, Mrs. Moon told a reporter that the children she taught were important to her.

"It's not that I don't love all children," she said. "It's just that these children mean something special to me."

After her retirement, Mrs. Moon stayed busy. She worked at The Children's House in Kennebunkport, a town-run day care and nursery, and worked as a substitute teacher until last year.

Among the many people she inspired to enter the field of special education was her daughter Marcie Moon, who works at Sanford High School

"She taught us that in every face there is more depth and skills that can be developed," her daughter said. "She taught us to see the worth in everyone."

Source: Portland Press Herald

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