Thomas Blair Mouer was the Superintendent of Schools in Benton and Granite Falls, Minnesota from 1911 to 1920, when he heeded the call of the law. He spent a year at the University of Chicago Law School and then transferred to the University of Minnesota Law School from which he graduated in 1923. For the next fifteen years he practiced law and engaged in a variety of community ventures, most memorably as a member of the Minneapolis Civil Service Commission. He died on November 24, 1938, aged fifty-five. At memorial services for the Hennepin County Bar Association the following year, Roy Puelston recalled the respect he brought to the Commission:
"Tom was very active in civic affairs and took a very keen interest in the promotion and betterment of our city government. He was appointed to the Civil Service Commission of Minneapolis by the late Mayor Bainbridge, which position Tom still held at the time of his death. During the period of time that he served on the Civil Service Commission, by his sense of fairness and square dealing he added to the respect in which honest civil service is held and his ability and integrity gave the system new and undiscovered advantages. His patience and brilliance of mind gave to the Commission new and greater prestige. Indicative of the high esteem in which Mr. Mouer was held by the public and the press, I quote a statement from one of the columnists, 'No finer man ever held public office in Minneapolis.'"
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