Sarah Thomas Moore
Sarah Adelie Thomas was born on July 7, 1850 in Trigg County, Kentucky. She was the youngest of three children born to Stanley Thomas and Sarah Thompson Rothrock Thomas. Stanley was a native of Trigg County and was the youngest child of James and Mary Standley Thomas. Sarah was a native of Clark County, Kentucky and was the daughter of Thomas John and Nancy Carter Thompson. Stanley had served as an acting sheriff, state representative and was a tavern owner.
Sarah’s siblings were Robert Baker Thomas, born in 1845 and Henry Clay Thomas, born in 1848 and married Mattie Narvie.
Sarah Adeline’s mother, Sarah died when Sarah Adeline was three years old and her father, Stanley died when she was seven years old. After her father’s death, she went to live with her aunt, Adaline Thompson Landes and her uncle Daniel Edward Landes in Galveston County, Texas. After leaving Trigg County, Sarah only returned to Kentucky one time and that was to attend the funeral of her brother, Robert Thomas, who died in 1913.
It was in Galveston that Sarah met her husband, Thomas Oscar “T. O.” Moore, who lived in Tyler, Texas and was visiting Galveston on business in 1865. Sarah and T. O. were married on January 3, 1867 at the Peachland Farm in Austin, Texas. T. O. was born in Talladega, Alabama on April 11, 1842 the son of John Hartwell Moore and Mary A. Crutchfield Moore. John was a native of Oxford, Massachusetts and was a physician in Talladega and founded an iron works which failed and created a great loss to the family. Mary was a native of Firecastle, Virginia.
After T. O.’s father’s iron works business failed in 1854, the family moved to Hays County, Texas south of Austin in 1855. In the fall of 1857, the family moved to Tyler, Texas where T. O ran engines for his family’s mills.
After the Civil War began in 1861, T. O. joined the Confederate Army at Tyler in the company which later organized into the 7th Texas Volunteer Infantry. In February 1862, the infantry went to Fort Donelson in Tennessee and fought in a battle against the Union troops led by General Ulysses S. Grant. On February 16,1862, the Confederate troops surrendered and Moore was separated from his company and became a prisoner of the Union army. In March. 1865, T. O. was granted a leave of absence because of an illness and was sent back to Tyler.
T. O. and Sarah moved to Comanche, Texas in 1872 where T. O. served in numerous community leadership roles. He served as Assistant City Secretary of Commerce, Director of the Comanche Foundry, an elected trustee of the public schools of Comanche and many other positions. In order to heal some of the lingering sectional tensions over the Civil War, T. O. invited a Union soldier, Dr. James W. Thomas (no family relation) to Comanche so that T. O. could return a book belonging to Dr. Thomas that had been found on a battlefield in 1862 at the Battle of Shiloh. When Thomas arrived, the town held a large celebration in his honor. As a civic leader, T. O. played an important role in the post-Civil War growth and recovery in Comanche. TX.
Sarah and T. O. were the parents of ten children, Thomas Moore, born in 1867 and died at birth; Ida Kate Moore, born in1869 and married Oliver Maxwell Simmons; Robert Hartwell Moore, born in 1872 and married Fannie Theresa Holmsley; Charles Maxon Moore, born in1875 and married Ethel Hill; Mollie Evelyn Moore, born in 1877 and married Sanctus Wilbur Godbold; Henry Edward Moore, born in 1881; Susan Martin Moore, born in 1884 and married Claude William Meadows; Percy Adelle Moore, born in 1888 and married Walter Jack Cunningham; Stanley Thomas Moore, born in 1891 and married Louise Black; and Clara Edith Moore, born in 1893 and married James Dallas “J. D.” Slack.
Thomas Oscar Moore died on July 15, 1910 at the age of 68 while attending a meeting in Comanche. He was buried in the Oakwood Cemetery in Comanche. Sarah Thomas Moore died on July 6, 1933 at the age of 82 at her home in Comanche. She was buried in the Oakwood Cemetery.
Thomas Oscar "T. O." Moore
T. O. during the Civil War
Newspaper article on meeting of T. O. and Dr. Thomas
Sarah tombstone
T. O. tombstone
LINEAGE: (Sarah Adelie Thomas was the daughter of Stanley and Sarah Thompson Rothrock Thomas. Stanley was the seventh child of James and Mary Standley Thomas.)