Lenore Mooney was born on 19 March 1859 in Edina, Missouri, the daughter of William R. Mooney and Mary Henry. She was the eleventh of sixteen children; among the siblings figuring in her correspondence are her brothers Will (1851-1937) and Harry (1865-1930), and her sisters Anabel (1863-1934) and Hester (1866-1949). In the 1890s Mooney worked as a clerk in the office of the Chicago Division of the U.S. Postal Inspector's Department. In 1898 she moved to Washington DC, to work in the same capacity for Chief Inspector George B. Hamlet. She left the Post Office in 1909. In 1902-03, 1910-12, and 1913-19, Mooney lived in Paris. Her fluency in French is evident from her correspondence, much of which is written in that language. An affidavit appended to her 1918 passport application states that "I came abroad in 1913 to study . . . . Soon after my arrival the war broke out and I immediately entered relief work and am sustaining my work." This work appears to have been carried on independently, and to have been consistent with the practice of "godmothering," as it was called during World War I, whereby a benefactress would "adopt" soldiers and others victimized by the war, writing and sending packages to provide moral and material support. Mooney filled a similar role for her nephew, Charles E. Bayly, Jr., a student at Princeton who served in France in 1917-18, first as a volunteer with the American Field Service and subsequently as sous-lieutenant in the French artillery. Bayly (b. 1897) was the son of Lenore's sister Hester and Charles E. Bayly, president of the Bayly-Underhill Manufacturing Co. of Denver, a maker of overalls. In 1919 Lenore Mooney returned to the United States, ultimately settling in Portland, Oregon with her sister Anabel and brother Will. She earned a teaching certificate for the Oregon public schools, served as editor of the Oregon Parent-Teacher magazine, and was active in various social causes (including pacifism). She died in Portland on 26 July 1941.