Although born in North Dakota, Kay Kirlin Moore came to know and love the village of Greenville in the Town of Smithfield where he lived most of his life, from 1945 until his death in March 1996 at age 85.

Moore and his wife, the late Louise Winsor Moore, both served as Trustees of the Greenville Public Library, with Moore serving from 1951 until 1979, including two stints as President of the Board of Trustees.

"He and his wife were very instrumental in getting the current library building set up in 1956 and again when the building doubled in size in 1966," according to Christopher LeRoux, Director of the Greenville Public Library.

The Moores both were pianists and organists. Their combined interest in music and the library is evidenced in the Kay K. and Louise Winsor Moore Recital Room at the Greenville Public Library.

The Moores also were active at St. Thomas in Church in Greenville where, among other involvement, they helped maintain the garden and decorated the church at Christmas. The Smithfield Historical Society, of which Moore was a member and served as president, also benefited from his commitment to the local area.

Moore attended Columbia University's School of Library Services and received his Masters Degree from Brown University, after which he became the chief catalog librarian at Brown for 31 years. Although he retired in June 1976, he didn't slow down. He became a volunteer cataloguer for the Rhode Island Historical Society's genealogy collection, joining their staff in 1980.

His interest in genealogy involved years and years of research into his own family and especially into his wife’s family, which resulted in his writing a couple of books on the subject. Mrs. Moore was the daughter of Thomas King Winsor, known in his time as the leading apple grower in the state and nicknamed "Apple King of Rhode Island."

Nicholas Nerney, a neighbor of the Moores, remembers Moore as "very quiet and very meek, but very active." He also recalls a personal side of Moore, his love of baking pies. "He took great pride in his apple pies, which he brought to every historical society event and function of any kind," he explains.

Among his other activities, Moore was chairman of the Rhode Island Legislative Commission on Libraries, taught cataloguing and classification at the University of Rhode Island, was president of the Rhode Island Library Association, and was also a member of the Rhode Island Guild of Organists and the RI Historical Society.

Mr. Moore’s will provided for the establishment of two funds at the Foundation, one unrestricted and the other designated for St. Thomas Church in Greenville and the Greenville Public Library, the latter of which is in memory of Thomas W. King and is for the support of cataloging and/or acquisition of genealogical materials.