Mrs. Justine Moore Chance was born into a large family near Perryville, a small riverport town in Decatur County, Tennessee. The year was 1934, well into the trying times of the Great Depression.

Inspired by her elementary school teacher, Miss Willie Vernon Striegel, she acquired a vision of one day becoming a teacher herself. Motivated by this vision she continued her schooling, graduating from Parsons High School in 1952, and from Union University in Jackson, Tennessee, in 1957.

Shortly after receiving her B.A. in education and biology, she married Jerry Chance, a ministerial candidate and a 1956 graduate of Union. Eager to begin their vocational commitments, Mrs. Chance and her new husband drove to New Orleans where Jerry would enroll at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (NOBTS), and she would apply for a position at one of the city’s elementary schools.

During the following ten years (1957-67), Mrs. Chance would accumulate five years of elementary level teaching experience in the Louisiana parishes of St. Bernard, Pointe Coupee, and Orleans She also earned graduate level credits at Tulane University and LSU. Additionally, she gave birth to two children: Diane in 1960 and Peter in 1964.

In the Spring of 1967 Jerry received the Th.D. degree from NOBTS and, forthrightly, the Chances moved to Tallahassee, Florida, where he had accepted an offer to become Assistant Professor of philosophy and religion at Florida A&M University.

For the three-year period 1967-70, Mrs. Chance suspended contractual commitments to the public classroom in order to more properly supervise her children: Diane was soon to enter the second grade at a school new to her, and Peter was a rambunctious pre-schooler. True to form, however, Mrs. Chance still volunteered to serve in First Presbyterian Church’s ESL program, worked in a summer camp for kids at the Coultas farm near Havana, Florida, hosted FAMU’s BSU students in her home, and taught in the kindergarten program at church.

At the beginning of the 1970-71 school year, with both children now in school, Mrs. Chance was under contract to teach sixth grade math (and later, science) at Tallahassee’s Nims Middle School. She would hold this position for twenty-two years, until her retirement in 1994. Along the way, she took on additional tasks such as directing the student computer club, supervising university interns, and mentoring newly hired teachers. She also served as lead teacher in her curricular area and coordinated continuing education/training for her colleagues.

Mrs. Chance took a one-year leave of absence in 1974-75 to complete all requirements for the M.A. degree at Florida A&M University, and then returned to her position at Nims in the Fall of 1975. In October 1987, she took a three-week leave to join her husband, who was teaching in London. Together, they toured London, Dublin, and Paris, and the countryside surrounding these famous cities.

Mrs. Chance had a warm supportive affection for her students and was quick to praise them as they achieved specific learning objectives. She knew the consolation that comes when her students displayed an evolving sense of self-confidence and were motivated for further learning. After teaching at Nims for more than two decades, however, and with her sixtieth birthday approaching, Mrs. Chance decided to retire and devote more time to her family history project. This arrangement did not last long, however, and she settled for a lighter teaching commitment by serving as a loyal and favored substitute teacher at Buck Lake Elementary for nine years (1995-2004).

Once she finally retired in 2004, Mrs. Chance returned to her project of researching the Moore family history. This is an exhaustive and detailed study which includes quotes from current living members of the family, copies of old photographs, stories, and additional information about births, marriages and death dates. She also gardened, canned fruits and vegetables, and taught a ladies’ Sunday School class at church.

This is a tremendous record of achievement and service by one whose own schooling began in a one-room, one-teacher school in rural Tennessee in 1940.

In the pre-dawn hours of March 1, 2022, Mrs. Chance died peacefully in her sleep at the age of 87.