[IP] Charlotte D. Mooers, 1924-2005
Title: Charlotte D. Mooers, 1924-2005
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Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2005 12:56:40 EDT
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Subject: Charlotte D. Mooers, 1924-2005
Charlotte D. Mooers, 1924-2005
Charlotte Davis Mooers, an expert on email systems during the early years of the Internet, died on March 17. She was 80.
She was born and raised in Washington D.C., where her parents were both science writers and her father Watson Davis was the director of Science Service. During World War II, she met Calvin N. Mooers, a mathematician working at the U.S. Naval Ordinance Laboratory in a newly formed computer division, designing an early electronic computer. They married in 1945 and moved to Cambridge MA, where she received a degree from Simmons College. She and her husband lived together in Cambridge until his death in 1994.
During the 1950s, Mrs. Mooers worked as a technical writer at MIT and for her husband’s firm, Rockford Research, which did pioneering research in artificial intelligence and computing. In the early 1970s, she was hired as by Bolt, Beranek & Newman (BBN) in Cambridge, where the first computer network and email system – the precursor of today’s Internet – were being developed. One of the few women in her field, Mrs. Mooers worked on two successive networks at BBN, CSNET and NEARNET, as postmaster, providing technical support to users trying to navigate the new email technology. At this time, when there were multiple separate email networks, getting a message from one network to another was complicated, and Mrs. Mooers became internationally known as an email expert, handling hundreds of requests for help every day and providing analysis to network administrators on how to make the system more user friendly. In addition, she wrote technical manuals on early email programs and maintained an electronic newsletter that documented the growth of the Internet.
Mrs. Mooers took great joy in her intellect and pursued a wide range of interests over her lifetime, learning about subjects from dinosaur evolution and fractal geometry to European history and calligraphy. She spent many summers with her family in Hancock, NH, where they hosted “mushroom walks” for the Boston Mycological Club and supported conservation efforts in the area.
She leaves daughter Helen S. Solorzano, her husband Roy, and grandchildren Alonzo and Lucia of Cambridge, MA; daughter Edith A. Mooers and David Hartley of Melrose, MA; brother Miles Davis and his wife Audrey of Baltimore, MD; niece Laura Davis of Houston, TX, and nephew Allan Davis of Baltimore, MD. A memorial service will be held on April 30, 2005 at 11:00 a.m. at the Bigalow Chapel in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, MA, with burial in Hancock, NH in the spring. Memorial donations may be made to the Harris Center for Conservation Education, 83 Kings Highway, Hancock, NH, 03449.
Arrangements by Beals-Geake-Magliozzi Funeral Home, 781-395-0128.
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