Josiah and Sara Moore

Josiah B. Moore (left) and Sara Montgomery were married on December 6, 1899. They had four children, Herman (top), Katherine (bottom), Boyd, and Paul. Joe was a prominant and well-liked businessman. By 1912 his Moore Implement Company (a John Deere Company franchise) was a solid competitor with other Villisca and area hardware stores, including the Jones Store owned by his former employer, F.F. Jones. Sara was active in the Presbyterian church and assisted with Childrens Day excercises on the night of June 9, 1912. Joe (43) and Sara (39), their children, and two visiting children were found bludgeoned to death with the Moore's own axe the following morning. Their unsolved murders began a chain of events that split the borough of Villisca and forever changed the course of the town's history and the lives of its inhabitants.

(taken 1904 or '05)