She reached Island No. 10 in November.  The outlook was dismal enough.  The Sunday school at Belvidere had pledged four dollars a month toward her support, and this was all the money in sight, though the Government provided transportation and soldiers’ rations.  That was in 1863, sixty years ago; but every year since then, until 1916, in summer and winter, in sunshine and rain, in the home and the church, with teaching and praying, feeding and clothing, nursing and hoping and loving, Joanna P. Moore in one way or another ministered to the Negro people of the South.

In April, 1864, her whole colony was removed to Helena, Arkansas.  The Home Farm was three miles from Helena.  Here was gathered a great crowd of women and children and helpless old men, all under the guard of a company of soldiers in a fort nearby.  Thither went the missionary alone, except for her faith in God.  She made an arbor with some rude seats, nailed a blackboard to a tree, divided the people into four groups, and began to teach school.  In the twilight every evening a great crowd gathered around her cabin for prayers.  A verse of the Bible was read and explained, petitions were offered, one of the sorrow-songs was chanted, and then the service was over.

Some Quaker workers were her friends in Helena, and in 1868 she went to Lauderdale, Mississippi, to help the Friends in an orphan asylum.  Six weeks after her arrival the superintendent’s daughter died, and the parents left to take their child back to their Indiana home to rest.  The lone woman was left in charge of the asylum.  Cholera broke out.  Eleven children died within one week.  Still she stood by her post.  Often, she said, those who were well and happy when they retired, ere daylight came were in the grave, for they were buried the same hour they died.  Night after night she prayed to God in the dark, and at length the fury of the plague was abated.

From time to time the failing health of her mother called her home, and from 1870 to 1873 she once more taught school near Belvidere.  The first winter the school was in the country.  “You can never have a Sunday school in the winter,” they told her.  But she did; in spite of the snow, the house was crowded every Sunday, whole families coming in sleighs.  Even at that the real work of the teacher was with the Negroes of the South.  In her prayers and public addresses they were always with her, and in 1873 friends in Chicago made it possible for her to return to the work of her choice.  In 1877 the Woman’s Baptist Home Mission Society honored itself by giving to her its first commission.

Nine years she spent in the vicinity of New Orleans.  Near Leland University she found a small, one-room house.  After buying a bed, a table, two chairs, and a few cooking utensils, she began housekeeping.  Often she started out at six in the morning, not to return until dark.  Most frequently she read the Bible to those who could not read.  Sometimes she gave cheer to mothers busy over the washtub.  Sometimes she would teach the children to read or to sew.  Often she would write letters for those who had been separated from friends or kindred in the dark days.  She wrote hundreds and hundreds of such letters; and once in a while, a very long while, came a response.