Among those who are devoting their lives to the practice of medicine and surgery in St. Louis and discharging their duties with a high sense of conscientious obligation and a recognition of the responsibility that devolves upon them is Dr. Harry M. Moore, who is one of the alumni of Washington University. He was born in California, Missouri, March 1, 1874, and is a son of John W. Moore, who was born in Massachusetts and was descended from one of the old families of that state, the ancestral line being traced back to a period long antedating the Revolutionary war, in which some of the name participated. John W. Moore became a resident of California, Missouri, in 1865 and was there engaged in the practice of law to the time of his death, which occurred in 1911, when he had reached the venerable age of eighty-one years. He was a prominent republican and for a quarter of a century served as chairman of the central republican committee. At the time of his death he was filling the position of postmaster of California. He was also a veteran of the Civil war, having served with the rank of major in the Twenty-seventh Massachusetts throughout the entire period of hostilities between the north and the south. He belonged to the Grand Army of the Republic, thus maintaining pleasant relations with his old military comrades. He married Charlotte Whitney Curtis, who was born in Georgia but is descended rrom one of the old Massachusetts families of English origin. Mrs. Moore is still living in California, Missouri, at the advanced age of eighty-two years. She became the mother of seven children, three sons and four daughters.
Dr. Moore of this review was the fifth in order of birth and in the pursuit of his education he passed through consecutive grades to the high school of his native city and was graduated therefrom in 1891. He later spent two years as a student at Westminster and for three years continued his education at Princeton University, Where he was graduated in 1896 with the Bachelor of Arts degree. Matriculating in Washington University of St. Louis in preparation for a professional career, he was graduated with the M. D. degree in 1898 and through the succeeding year he was an interne in the Missouri Baptist Sanitarium. He then became assistant surgeon to Dr. Paul Tupper and since 1908 has engaged in the private practice of medicine and surgery independently. From 1912 until 1917 he was chief surgeon for the police department of St. Louis and was reappointed in March, 1921, for four years. In June of the latter year he entered the military service of the country and was commissioned a captain of the Medical Corps, while in the following November he was promoted to the rank of major. He served altogether twenty-three months and was stationed at the Embarkation Hospital at Newport News, Virginia, and was chief of the surgical service from February, 1918, until May, 1919. He is now serving on the staff of St. Luke’s Hospital and also on the staff of the Frisco Hospital and devotes the major part of his time to the practice of surgery, in which he has developed a high degree of skill and efficiency.
In St. Louis, on the 8th of June, 1912, Dr. Moore was united in marriage to Miss Jamie Jones, a native of Rockport, Indiana, and a daughter of James A. and Airey (Snyder) Jones, the latter a representative of an old and prominent family of Rockport. Politically he is a republican but has never been ambitious to hold office outside the strict path of his profession. Fraternally he is a well known Mason, belonging to Tuscan Lodge, No. 360, A. F. & A. M.; St. Louis Chapter, No. 8, R. A. M.; St. Aldemar Commandery, No. 18, K. T.; and Moolah Temple of the Mystic Shrine. He is likewise connected with the Bellerive Country Club and belongs also to the Beta Theta Phi, a Greek letter fraternity. Along strictly professional lines his connection is with the St. Louis Medical Society, the Missouri State Medical Association, the American Medical Association and the American Urological Association, and he is also a fellow of the American College of Surgeons. Holding to high professional ideals, he is constantly embracing every opportunity that will lead to the attainment of these ideals and step by step along the line of an orderly progression has reached a point of prominence and success as one of the able surgeons of his adopted city.