Sunday Dinner At Moraine’s Restaurant

The above advertisement is from 1932

Moraine’s restaurant was owned by Harry Moraine.  This was actually his second restaurant in Delmar.  The first restaurant was on Railroad Ave and he sold it in 1923 to Nichols and Truitt.  The second restaurant was on State Street and he opened it in 1931 on Thanksgiving Day.  Before it was a restaurant it was a bowling alley in the Steven’s building.  His restaurant, like most of his enterprises, was a short lived affair.  It had probably been sold by 1933.

Harry Moraine was born in California in 1868 to John Moraine and Margaret Parkes, immigrants from Scotland and Ireland respectfully. About 1909 he married Annie S. English (1883-1918).  It was the second marriage for both of them.  They lived in New York City where he was an Electrician.  Annie was from Harrington, Delaware.  She was the daughter of Elisha English and Rachel Goslin (Mrs. Rachel Cohee in 1918) .  Around 1915 Harry opened his first restaurant in Delmar.  In 1918 his wife had a bout with influenza, it developed into pneumonia and she died in October of 1918.  She is buried in Harrington. 

Sometime in 1919 or 1920 he remarried, this time to Mary Ellen "Mae” Parker (1889-1968).  Mae had been born in Powellville.   Their first daughter, Mary Anne Moraine (1920-1994) was born in Delmar in 1920.  In 1923 he sold the restaurant and moved to Harrington where he had a restaurant and a number of newspaper routes.  His son, John Merrill Moraine, was born in 1924 in Harrington.  His son lived for about seven months before dying of an unknown illness.  He is buried in Harrington.  

above Moraines restaurant in Harrington, with thanks to the Harrington Historical Society for the photo - note there was a hotel on the second floor and a laundry.  The people in front of the store are unidentified but they may well be Harry and Mae.

In 1927 Harry sold his restaurant and newsstand and became a hotel manager in Woodland Beach, Delaware.  By 1930 he was manager of a Cemetery in New Castle County Delaware.  In 1929 his second daughter, Amy Ellen Moraine, was born. 

By 1935 he had added the title Captain to his name and was working at first the Chincoteague Seafood Co Restaurant in Salisbury and second at Powell’s Market Street Tavern where he served oysters and steamed seafood.  His wife worked as a machine operator in a shirt factory.

In July of 1941 Harry Moraine died at age 72.  His wife and he were living in Fruitland.  He was buried in Harrington, Delaware. About seven months later Mae remarried, this time to Charles Henry Davis.  Mr. Davis was also about twenty years older than Mae as had been Harry.  Charles would die in 1951 at age 83.  Mae would die in 1968, she had made her home with her daughter Mary Adkins, who had married Elmer George Adkins.  

Harry and Mae’s second daughter, Amy Ellen Moraine, would marry Walter William Fisher.  In August of 1955 the couple would have an argument that resulted in a murder/ suicide.  They had a ten year old son.