Evelyn Marie Mulry Moore (October 20, 1942 – December 17, 2012) was an American athlete who won two gold medals in swimming events at the

1964 Summer Paralympics The , originally known as the 13th International Stoke Mandeville Games and also known as Paralympic Tokyo 1964,

in Tokyo and a gold and two silver medals at the

1968 Summer Paralympics The 1968 Summer Paralympics ( he, המשחקים הפאראלימפיים בקיץ 1968) were the third Paralympic Games to be held. Organised under the guidance of the International Stoke Mandeville Games Federation (ISMGF), they were known as th ...

in Tel Aviv. She also competed in field events at the

National Wheelchair Games National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, c ...

in the 1960s and 1970s. She was inducted into the National Wheelchair Athletic Association Hall of Fame in 1978.

Early life and education

Evelyn Marie Mulry was born in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

and raised in

Port Washington, New York Port Washington is a Hamlet (New York), hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) on the Cow Neck Peninsula in the North Hempstead, New York, Town of North Hempstead, in Nassau County, New York, Nassau County, on the North Shore (Long Island), No ...

, the daughter of Philip Mulry and Gertrude Elizabeth Jones Mulry. Her father was a lawyer. She was a

Girl Scout Girl Guides (known as Girl Scouts in the United States and some other countries) is a worldwide movement, originally and largely still designed for girls and women only. The movement began in 1909 when girls requested to join the then-grassroot ...

and played basketball in high school. She graduated from St. Mary's High School in

Manhasset, New York Manhasset is a Hamlet (New York), hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in Nassau County, New York, Nassau County, on the North Shore (Long Island), North Shore of Long Island, in New York (state), New York. It is considered the anchor communi ...

in 1960. In 1961, at age 18, Mulry was paralyzed in a car accident, and spent almost a year learning to live with quadriplegia at the

Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine Rusk Rehabilitation is the world's first and among the largest university-affiliated academic centers devoted entirely to inpatient/outpatient care, research, and training in rehabilitation medicine for both adults and pediatric patients. The syst ...

. She started college at

Pace University Pace University is a private university with its main campus in New York City and secondary campuses in Westchester County, New York. It was established in 1906 by the brothers Homer St. Clair Pace and Charles A. Pace as a business school. Pac ...

before the accident, and transferred the

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univ ...

, starting in 1963.

Career

At the University of Illinois, Mulry became a member of the school's disabled students' organization, Delta Sigma Omicron, and the Gizz Kids wheelchair sports program. She competed in swimming and

table tennis Table tennis, also known as ping-pong and whiff-whaff, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball, also known as the ping-pong ball, back and forth across a table using small solid rackets. It takes place on a hard table div ...

events in the 1964 Summer Paralympics in Tokyo, and at the 1968 Summer Paralympics in Tel Aviv. She won two gold medals in Tokyo, and another gold plus two silver medals at Tel Aviv. Moore also competed at the National Wheelchair Games in 1964, 1965, 1967, 1969, 1975, 1976, and 1978. She entered bowling and field events (discus, shot put, javelin). She was inducted into the National Wheelchair Athletic Association Hall of Fame in 1978, in the same induction group as B. Cairbre McCann and

Julius Duval The gens Julia (''gēns Iūlia'', ) was one of the most prominent patrician families in ancient Rome. Members of the gens attained the highest dignities of the state in the earliest times of the Republic. The first of the family to obtain the c ...

. Moore worked for 17 years as an administrator at the State of Illinois Department of Public Aid in

Champaign Champaign ( ) is a city in Champaign County, Illinois, United States. The population was 88,302 at the 2020 census. It is the tenth-most populous municipality in Illinois and the fourth most populous city in Illinois outside the Chicago metropo ...

. She retired to Florida in 1986.

Personal life

Mulry married Richard Eugene Moore in 1965. They had a son, Justin (Judd); she also helped to raise her husband's children from an earlier marriage. She was widowed with Richard died in 2001; she died in

Titusville, Florida Titusville is a city in eastern Florida and the county seat of Brevard County, Florida, United States. The city's population was 43,761 as of the 2010 United States Census. Titusville is located along the Indian River (Florida), Indian River, west ...

in 2012, aged 70 years.

References

External links

An oral history with Evelyn Moore
from the University of Illinois Archives 1942 births 2012 deaths Medalists at the 1964 Summer Paralympics Medalists at the 1968 Summer Paralympics Paralympic gold medalists for the United States People from Port Washington, New York People with tetraplegia University of Illinois alumni Wheelchair users {{Improve categories, date=July 2021