Marge Moran remembered for making others feel welcome

Marge Moran lived most of her life with a goal to make people feel comfortable and important.

“Our mother was a really vivacious, and first and foremost,  welcoming personality,” Margo Empen, one of Moran’s daughters, said. “She loved meeting new people, finding out about them, welcoming them into wherever it was she was, whether it was her home, whether it was when she worked for the Holiday Lodge or for the Chamber or even as receptionist for The Observer.”

Marjorie Moran, 82, died March 15.

Mrs. Moran was cared for at Sarasota Memorial Hospital in her final days. One day, a nurse pulled Mrs. Moran’s daughter Jan Jordan aside.

“I’m a better person for meeting your mom, and she changed me,” the nurse said to Jordan.

Jordan said this is exactly who her mother was -- she made other people feel welcome and comfortable. The Morans led a life of service above self. Empen said her parents often asked themselves how they could give back to others.

They often answered this question through their work for the Longboat Key Chamber of Commerce.

Mrs. Moran and her late husband Ed Moran became involved with the chamber upon their move to Longboat Key from Illinois in 1997. The couple worked as managers at Holiday Lodge, now known as Turtle Crawl Inn. Eventually, they both became chamber ambassadors.

Andrew Vac, a previous chamber chairman, said even though Mrs. Moran wasn’t as outgoing as her husband, she still made a vast impact on people.

“She was always a force you could count on to welcome people and greet them and make people feel good and make people feel important and wanted by the chamber, and that was her best attribute,” Vac said. “I mean, she was a real people person.”

In her free time, Mrs. Moran enjoyed Jazzercise, crochet, playing cards and she loved spending time with her family.

“There wasn’t anything my mom wasn’t up to,” Empen said.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Edwin K. Moran. She is survived by her children, Greg Moran, Jan Jordan and Margo Empen; two grandchildren; three great grandchildren; and one sister-in-law, Joan McCallister.

A celebration of life will be held at 3:30 p.m. on Friday, March 23, at Bayfront Park Recreation Center, 4052 Gulf of Mexico Drive. In lieu of flowers, a memorial has been established to the Longboat Key Chamber of Commerce, 5390 GMD.