Samuel Moore, 92, insurance physician

Dr. Samuel Moore, 92, of Fort Washington, a retired medical director of Life Insurance Co. of North America and an amateur archaeologist, died of brain cancer Thursday, May 19, at Abington Hospice at Warminster.

Dr. Moore briefly had a medical practice in Erdenheim but spent most of his career with insurance companies. He was assistant medical director of Provident Mutual Life in Philadelphia when he was appointed medical director of Life Insurance Co. of North America in 1957.

He established the medical department at the company, now a subsidiary of Cigna, and for 30 years conducted physicals for life-insurance applicants and examined claims. After retiring from the firm in 1987, he was an insurance medicine consultant until 2003.

Dr. Moore, whose ancestors fought in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, grew up in Elkins Park. He graduated from Cheltenham High School and earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a member of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity and the Sphinx Senior Society. In his senior year, he captained the track team. At a meet in 1941, he high-jumped 6 feet, 41/2 inches to break a Penn record of 6 feet, 4 inches, that had stood for 51 years.

Dr. Moore graduated from Penn's medical school in 1944, then served in the Navy at the Naval Hospital in Philadelphia during World War II.

After his discharge from the military, he completed a residency in internal medicine at Philadelphia General Hospital

He and his wife, Mildred Martin, married in 1944. They were living in Erdenheim when he was recalled to active duty in the Korean War.

Dr. Moore was stationed at a Naval hospital in California and spent Christmas 1952 away from his family. His daughter, Donna, then 7, sent a letter to New Jersey's governor, Alfred E. Driscoll, with the salutation "Dear Government," asking why her father wasn't home.

Driscoll replied that her father and others had to serve in the military to defend the country against "bad people." The youngster had sent the letter to Driscoll because Dr. Moore's mother, Mary Yerkes Jones, a WFIL radio talk-show host, had interviewed him.

Dr. Moore enjoyed golfing, walking, and chipping away at rock croppings and sifting dirt in search of early-American artifacts. He found clay pipes, bottles, and other items from the Revolutionary War period near his home in Fort Washington and found Native American arrowheads, tomahawks, and animal bones in ancient encampments he discovered on weekend digs in the Poconos, his daughter, Donna Walter, said. He often consulted with experts at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology about his findings, she said.

A Mason, he was past master of Melita Lodge 295 in Philadelphia.

In addition to his daughter, Mr. Moore is survived by a son, Michael; three grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren. His wife died in 2002, and a son, Robert, died in 2005.

A service will be private. Dr. Moore donated his body to Penn's medical school.

Donations may be made to Abington Hospice at Warminster, 225 Newtown Rd., Warminster, Pa. 18974.