In his book about Lafayette Square, John Albury Bryan wrote that Phillip North Moore and his wife Eva Perry Moore were the most distinguished couple to have ever lived there.
This is high praise within a neighborhood that hosted famous doctors, lawyers, judges, politicians, publishers and business moguls. That most of the well-known were men comes at their expense, as none were ‘couples.’
With the 102nd anniversary of passage of the 19th amendment to the US Constitution, here’s a look at a notable suffragette who lived in Lafayette Square.
Out West and back again
It’s difficult to write about Eva Perry Moore without creating a list. Her service and accomplishments were so far flung that one has to wonder if she even recognized spare time.
Originally from Rockford, Illinois, Eva graduated Vassar College, and married young mining engineer Philip North Perry in 1879. They began their married life in Leadville, Colorado in 1879. He built and superintended a smelter there, then prospected on his own until 1882. In 1880, Leadville was only two years old, but boasted a population of 15,000 and produced $15,000,000 in gold silver and lead per year. It was a wild and nearly lawless place, but the Moores viewed it as a great opportunity to work in a formative land. They may have honed their organizational skills along the way.
The couple migrated to Kentucky with Philip’s work, then to St. Louis in 1890. They moved into 1520 Mississippi Avenue in Lafayette Square two years later and resided there until 1903.
The General Federation of Women’s Clubs was formed in 1890, during the Progressive era. The Federation held that class warfare, poverty, racism and violence could best be addressed by providing good education, a safe environment, and decent working conditions. This sought to displace the theory of social Darwinism that dominated from the 1870s until then. Eva was on the leading edge of a movement defining itself and growing as she actively nurtured it.
Organizational whirlwind
She served as secretary treasurer for the Federation from 1894-1900, vice president from 1904-1908, and president from 1908-1912. Eva worked constantly toward uniting the varied interests and approaches within the movement. Eva travelled the country, gave speeches, and shared a stage with Presidents Roosevelt and Taft.
Eva’s husband Philip said, “If Mrs. Moore ever runs for President of the United States, she can count on my vote.”
The St. Louis Provident Association was created in 1860 for helping the city’s urban poor. It was progressive in the sense that it offered both temporary relief and occupational training. Developing from it were both the Visiting Nurses Association and Urban League, in addition to child daycare, food programs, a savings bank, and social worker training. Eva Moore directed the Provident Association from 1895 on.
At various times she served as president of the Visiting Nurses Association, and National Council of Women, vice president of the National Conservation Congress, St. Louis Symphony, and American Peace Society, chair of the Municipal Nurses Board, chaplain of the Daughters of American Colonists, and member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. During World War I, Eva organized the National League for Women’s Service, coordinating war work on the home front. After the war, she became a leading advocate for the League of Nations and peace efforts.
Following a speech by Eva, a newspaperman in San Francisco described her as “a distinguished presence, fresh, calm and astute; with tact, decision and nicely gauged cordiality. She has admirable control of a pleasing voice, and speaks much better and more to the point than the average man who trusts himself in public.”
Long lives, well-lived.
By 1914, Eva and Philip relocated to 3125 Lafayette Ave (now home to Schnur Funeral Home). Who’s Who that year cited her formal affiliations with 17 organizations “and various philanthropies.” She was also a member of the Superior Jury for the 1904 Worlds Fair, and delegate to both National Child Labor Commission and National Convention on Prison Labor.
After the vote was secured for women, Eva became vice president of the International Council of Women, and held that role from 1920-1930. Despite her network of associations, she consistently strove to be apolitical, and was quoted as saying, “We have no platform unless it is the care of women and children, and the home, the latter meaning the four walls of the city as well as the four walls of brick and mortar,”
She somehow found time to mother two children, who did well in life too.
Later years
By the time Eva and Philip North Moore had been married for half a century, they lived at 3414 Hawthorne Boulevard. Their golden anniversary celebration was appropriate for a couple that started out in a gold boom town. Over 400 invitations were sent for the grand reception and ‘musicale’ at their home.
As is typical of so many busy and long married couples, they lived to ripe old ages and died a year apart, Philip in 1930 at age 80, and Eva in 1931 at 78. Each had long biographical obits in the local newspapers.
Philip was no slouch himself; a member of the State Bureau of Geology and Mines for 23 years, and president of the American Institute of Mining Engineers in 1917. He served during World War I on the National Research Council. After the war he spent 12 years on the War Materials Relief Commission. North was a member of the Round Table, St Louis Academy of Science and Noonday Club.
He accomplished all of this while engaged in a career that involved 50,000 miles of travel per year throughout North America. Along the way he managed a placer mining operation in Montana, iron companies in Alabama and Kentucky, and a zinc mine in Oklahoma.
Eva’s favorite poems were by Henry Van Dyke, and her favorite of those was entitled “Work.”
Let me but find it in my heart to say, When vagrant wishes beckon me astray, "This is my work; my blessing, not my doom; "Of all who live, I am the one by whom "This work can best be done in the right way."
Their Lafayette Square home still stands
During the Moore’s stay at 1520 Mississippi, the ruinous tornado of 1896 struck South St. Louis. The lovely turret steeple you see today looks flattened, and the north wall is largely missing. The Moores persevered through it, and it’s a tribute to them that they stayed in the neighborhood for another seven years. Others took the cue and their insurance settlements, to leg it west.
The house was originally built as an up and down duplex. Although J.A. Bryan indicated the Moores living there as early as 1892, other records point to original construction of the building in 1895. In either case, by the 1950’s it was a rooming house, and in a disrepair consistent with much of the neighborhood. Paul and Susan Sauer bought the home in 2000 and spent years bringing it back to its Gilded Age style. It holds an enviable spot looking out on Lafayette Park.
The 19th amendment took a lot of uphill pushing to get accomplished. Eva Perry Moore, the most distinguished woman in Lafayette Square, was integral to that. It’s a lot easier today to exercise that empowerment. Please celebrate your vote.
Research Sources:
St Louis Post-Dispatch; January 20,1930; Page 2
St Louis Post-Dispatch; April 29, 1931; Page 3
Eva Perry Moore from Who’s Who of 1914 1915
Wikipedia entry for Eva Perry Moore and for Philip North Moore
A comprehensive history of the St. Louis Provident Association is on the registration form for The National Register of Historic Places. Karen Bode Baxter and Timothy Maloney did some excellent research into the social and medical roles of the association in the 20th century. https://mostateparks.com/sites/mostateparks/files/STL%20Provident%20Assoc%20Bldg.pdf
The poems of Henry Van Dyke can be found at https://www.poemhunter.com/henry-van-dyke/
AIME profile from records for 1917.
Lafayette Square by John Albury Bryan; self-published; 1969.
Thank you for the added info on our home!!! Loved it. I’ll have to share our house history book with you – done in 2002 (?).
I absolutely LOVE that a strong woman like Mrs. Moore was a part of 1520’s history!
Thanks,Susan; Happy to take a look at the book anytime!
Mike,
Nice work. Your output proves the very Van Dyke poem you reference as you are the one by whom this work can best be done in the right way.
Dan H