Ralph F. Moore, who began his career as a clerk at Topeka at the age of fifteen, and is now secretary and general manager of the Hall Stationery Company of that city, is one of the younger element of successful business men in Kansas, and had the characteristic modesty of those who raise themselves by their own offorts to the plane of prosperity.
A native Kansan, he was born on a farm in Shawnee County, October 4, 1873, a son of Lawrence W. and Edith (Ayles) Moore. His father was born in 1832 in the State of New York, where he was reared and married. He followed merchandising at Sing Sing and other points in New York until the outbreak of the Civil war. He enlisted as a private in a New York regiment and served practically throughout the period of hostilities, being honorably discharged at the close. In one of the engagements in which he was a participant and during a charge he received a wound from the butt of a musket over the eye. In 1866 Lawrence W. Moore moved to Kansas, and for about forty years followed farming in Shawnee County. He died in 1908 while his wife passed away in 1905.
Among his parents’ seven children, six of whom are still living, Ralph F. Moore was the fifth. His parents made their home in Topeka from 1880, and he grew up and received his early education in the public schools of that city. When he became a clerk at the age of fifteen it was in the Kellam Book and Stationery Company, and that early experience gave a permanent bent to his career. In 1898 he opened a book and stationery store known as the Moore Book & Stationery Company, his associate being Dr. A. S. Embree. In October, 1902, with Willard Hall, he bought the interest of Doctor Embree and later the Hall Stationery Company was incorporated for the handling of books, a large line of office stationery and office furniture of all kinds. This is one of the principal concerns of its kind in Kansas.
Mr. Moore is an active member of the Topeka Commercial Club, is a Scottish Rite Mason, and a republican in politics. While most of his success had come from merchandising, Mr. Moore had a hobby and now gives it a part of his time and attention. This hobby is farming and stock raising. He and John V. Abrahams own a section of land in Shawnee County, and on this land some fine Hereford cattle are raised, and Mr. Moore is giving much study to improving his property.
In 1910 Mr. Moore married Gertrude Burr of Emporia, Kansas, daughter of Capt. Rufus H. Burr.