Sara Jane Moore is a hard woman to pin down.

In the days immediately following her attempted assassination of President Gerald R. Ford on September 22, 1975, the press scrambled to find some information about this mystery woman who had appeared out of nowhere. Both the San Francisco Chronicle and the New York Times described her as a child of an impoverished neighborhood in Charleston, West Virginia. The accounts also relayed, without question, Sara Jane’s passing claims that she was descended from a West Virginia oil and timber baron. Neither description was accurate. In fact, the only truth in either account was the identity of her home state: West Virginia, where she was born Sara Jane Kahn on February 15, 1930.

Sara Jane grew up during the Depression and the rationing years of World War II. Although her family did not have an abundance of food, they didn’t suffer the pinched scarcity of food rationing during the bleak years of the 1930’s. The Kahn’s were a very pragmatic couple. They arranged their life to include providing food for their family by growing their vegetables and raising several hundred chickens.

On the south side of the house was a ten-acre pasture, part of it planted with corn, beans, and tomatoes? On the north side of the house lived three generations of a farming family, with six milk cows and several acres of green onions. A thicket of woods reached right up to the back of the house, and several farms, complete with pastured cows, were nearby. In the long daylight hours of the summer season and on weekends well into the fall, the Kahn family would tend the vegetable garden. There would always be canned tomatoes, as well as applesauce, peaches and pears. Eggs gathered from the chickens, and sometimes the chickens themselves, fed the family; and they also sold chickens as a supplemental source of income.

From the outside, at least, the Kahn’s presented a picture-perfect vision of twentieth-century middle-class American childhood: three brothers, two sisters, and their parents, living in an idyllic hilltop house in Charleston, West Virginia, nestled in the lush Appalachians and overlooking the Kanawha River.

The Kahn’s house on Woodward Drive was a safe refuge from the world’s turmoil. The two-story log cabin with full-length covered porches was set on five acres, on a slope of land in a rural West Charleston neighborhood, a community of several hundred homes with a small town feel. Populated by factory workers and farmers, and white collar employees like the Kahn’s, it was a community that observed birthdays and holidays at home with family and friends. It was a perfect home for children. The five Kahn children had plenty of room to run and play.

Inside the Kahn home, Sara Jane’s parents, Olaf and Ruth had created an atmosphere right out of a Saturday Evening Post cover by Norman Rockwell. The house had two stone fireplaces, one in the living room and one in the reception room. Although each fireplace was large enough to hold logs sixty inches wide and thirty inches around, Olaf—mindful of the hard times of the 1930s—knew the family would get better heat with a gas heater, which he built into both.

Olaf Kahn had grown up on a small rural farm in Southern New Jersey, where his parents had settled after emigrating from Germany just before the turn of the century. He settled in Charleston after the First World War. A trim six feet with sandy hair, high cheekbones, and a pleasant face, Olaf had played the violin at concert level until his hand was injured while serving with the Marines during World War I. After the war, he became a mechanical engineer and he found work at the Belle Plant site of the DuPont Chemical Company in Charleston, where he would eventually became Superintendent of the Power Plant Division.

Ruth Moore Kahn was ten years younger than her husband and, at five feet two, quite a bit shorter. She had curly red hair, and a waistline that increased over the years as her weight grew from 130 to 180 pounds. Ruth was a violinist with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra, and music was one of the special bonds that she and Olaf shared as they courted and married.

She was just twenty years old and newly married when her first daughter, Ruth Anne, was born. Sara Jane arrived three years later. Their first son, Olaf II, came along in 1932, and was nicknamed Skippy early on. Another son, Paul, was born in 1935, but survived for only five days before succumbing to lung congestion and other developmental disabilities. Ruth was pregnant again just over a year later, and son Dana joined the family in 1937. Charles, the youngest, would be born in 1941.

Ruth Kahn was more vivacious than the solid and dependable Olaf, but she was a hard worker forever cleaning, picking up after the kids, or changing a diaper, and she kept the Kahn home white-glove clean. Her daughters were dressed in the latest fashions, from their hair to their patent leather shoes. She was an expert tailor, and sewed many of their dresses herself—right down to impeccably smocked bodices. She could “smock a dress like nobody’s business” for her own or a neighbors’ daughter, and she knew at least eight different smocking stitches.

Like many moms with large families, she was known as the “neighborhood mom”—the person to go to if you had a problem, no matter who you were. She loved her family and worked hard to make the holidays special occasions not only for her own children, but for the neighborhood kids as well. She carved pumpkins for Halloween, and set up an elaborate horror house designed to scare and delight the children—complete with spooky noises, witches, cobwebs, and peeled grapes as eyes for the blindfolded visitors to touch. She was famous in the neighborhood for baking a real birthday cakes with butter cream frosting. It was almost unheard of because of during the Depression with food rationing and the cost of sugar rationing during the War. Yet Ruth Kahn had plenty of butter, milk and eggs for something as frivolous as a birthday cake. Neighbors and friends of the Kahn children never missed one of their birthday parties.

Olaf’s annual salary of $10,000 was a very decent income during the Great Depression, and it was supplemented both by Ruth's earnings with the Symphony and the chicken-and-egg money. Ruth made sure that the kids were always well dressed and well fed. In this musical family, music and dance lessons for all the children were a given.

Music was an important part of Kahn household. Each family member played at least one instrument. Ruth Ann, a bright girl who grew into a tall young woman with an ethereal look, played the flute. Sara Jane played the violin, although she frequently complained about the drudgery of practicing. Often, the family would gather with their instruments, accompanied by Olaf at the old upright piano.

Olaf was a practical man who kept his personal struggles to himself. He was known as the “man of the house,” and could be a bit harsh and aloof from his children. Like his wife he held high expectations for each of them.

The Kahn family brought life to their eight large rooms. Mornings were hectic as adults and kids poured out of the four upstairs bedrooms. In the afternoons, one or two kids were always found at Ruth’s kitchen table, doing homework or snacking before chores.

The family always gathered for dinner and Olaf demanded that the children be well behaved during the meal. The kids cleared the table after dinner, and then worked on homework or practiced their instruments. As Ruth fussed in the kitchen, Olaf would change into more comfortable clothes and settle into his upholstered easy chair in the living room. The radio console played classical music softly in the background, and a lit cigarette dangled between his long fingers as he read the Charleston's Evening Daily Mail from cover to cover.

A closer look at the Kahn’s would reveal some cracks. Ruth was a solid neighborhood mom, but she was also perfectionist who was rarely satisfied with her children’s efforts. She held herself and her children to very high standards; when Ruth Ann or Sara Jane would finish a chore, Mama Ruth would inspect the work. More often than not, she’d declare the job not good enough and redo it herself.

Olaf, too, had very strict limits and a cutting tongue that could slice through his children’s self confidence. His after-dinner ritual, for example, was not to be interrupted for any reason. In the rare instance when one of the children actually gathered the courage to walk into the living room to ask a question about a homework assignment, Olaf’s response was cold. Raising his eyebrows, he would fix one eye on the child and stare at him, through the curling smoke of his cigarette. In a firm, flat monotone, he would say, “If I told you, you wouldn’t understand anyway.” Most of the children never made that mistake twice.

Another look at the perfect picture Kahn family revealed at least one member of the family that seemed not to fit in. Early photos of Sara Jane show a slight girl with shoulder-length brown hair, sad blue eyes, and a delicate, but impenetrable demeanor. Standing in the midst of her family, Sara Jane stood just outside the circle of brothers and sisters. Ruth Ann, two years older, was formidable in her religious devotion. She found her escape immediately after college in marriage to a minister and never moved back home.

Sara Jane’s younger brothers, Skip (Olaf Jr.), Dana and Charles formed a boisterous familial bond as teens. High school sports defined their relationships at home and with their many friends. There was no room for sisters in a community of boys and their sports.

As one of her junior high school teachers delicately described her, Sara Jane was “a little odd.” It was her lack of connectedness with her teachers and other students. She isolated herself from other students and found escape in acting class submerging herself in a role.

Odd, but smart. Sara Jane was bright and curious—she skipped a grade in elementary school—a straight-A student, an accomplished violinist, a ballet student, an excellent tailor like her mother, and a talented actor and artist. Yet something was clearly amiss, and most people who came into contact with her sensed it.

At age thirteen, recalled a ballet-school classmate, “She was always making up something bizarre. She would come in and tell the craziest stories about her family being descendents of royalty.”

Neighbors from Woodward Drive and her classmates from Stonewall Jackson High remember Sara Jane as “aloof” but “intense,” “unfriendly” but “looking for the limelight”—and, always, “a little odd.” They said it was difficult to reconcile the smart and driven student who was at the same time a loner.

Adults in the neighborhood tried hard to make sure other children did not exclude her. “Be nice to Sara Jane, even though she seems hard to get to know,” her Girl Scout troop leader instructed the other girls more than once.

But it didn’t help, a troop member said. “Even if you were nice to her, she never reciprocated. She never tried to really be a part of anything, even when we tried to bring her in. She never had any friends.”

Paradoxically, Sara Jane often demanded a central role—no matter how uncomfortable that might make others. Sixty years later, a neighbor from the Woodward Drive home in Charleston still remembers attending Sara Jane’s thirteenth birthday party when he was ten. Ruth had invited the neighborhood kids to the party. They may not have been fond of Sara Jane, but the promise of getting to eat one of Ruth’s delicious cakes probably clinched the deal for most of them. When the kids arrived at the party, however, Sara Jane insisted that they all had to sit and listen to her perform a violin recital before the cake would be served.

“Sara Jane always liked to be the center of attention,” her guest recalled years later, shaking his head.

Sara Jane found a new way to enjoy the limelight at Charleston’s Stonewall Jackson High School, which she began in 1944. Soon, she had joined Thespians, the drama club. Although she was still not sought after as a friend, she was respected as an actor and was considered intensely dedicated.

Early on, it was clear that Sara Jane was adept at role-playing. She auditioned for the lead in each new production, and won roles in several, including Why the Chimes Rang and The Late Christopher Bean. As one of her classmates observed, “It seemed as though she was clearly headed for an acting career.”

She also joined the Spanish club, where she soon acquired a reputation as an fluent Spanish speaker. According to a fellow Spanish club member, Sara Jane was “studying Spanish as though she were going to Spain.”

Sara Jane did nothing at half-speed. She prided herself in being an excellent student, and found no academic challenge too difficult or intimidating. She had such confidence in her intellect that nothing she attempted was unachievable. Her violin playing approached concert level. Her school report on Ivanhoe looked expertly prepared. She labored over the manuscript for hours, carefully hand printing the text as through it were typeset, and adding beautifully executed drawings.

But despite her achievements, no one ever asked Sara Jane to “meet me at the Diamond,” the centrally located Diamond Department Store, downtown at Capital and Washington Streets which was the social extension of several generations of Charleston students. They flowed into the store’s coffee, coke and sandwich shop to hang out after school and on Saturdays.

The fountain at the Diamond was a real-life scene that today seems like something from a movie. Young girls sat on high stools at the at the wide marble counter of the soda fountain, legs crossed demurely, giggling with their friends. Couples going steady snuggled close at the small round wire-legged tables, drinking from one soda with two straws. On Friday and Saturday nights, boys slouched outside the front door while girls walked down the street with their friends, flirting and pretending to ignore them. It was an American ritual.

But Sara Jane was not to be found with the other teens at the Diamond. Her most animated interactions were reserved for responding eagerly to teachers’ questions. Instead of flirting with boys or laughing with girlfriends, she moved purposefully from class to class, with a stack of books in her arms and a very serious expression on her face. Her arena for social acceptance was limited to clubs focused on a goal. High academic achievement, according to her family, was how Sara Jane’s defined herself. If she could not compete socially, then she would compete academically. She did not need social acceptance to join school sponsored clubs.

Along with many girls, women, and men too old for the armed services, she also spent some the end of the War years as an active member of Charleston’s Civil Air Patrol (CAP). Sara Jane excelled at the intricacies of aviation and was quick to learn the instruments when the group was taken up on an orientation flight in the Cessna 310. Sara Jane sported her uniform with pride. There were few girls in CAP and she was one of them.

Her family and friends assumed Sara Jane was heading for some sort of conventional life—perhaps as an actress, or a Spanish teacher, or a musician. Perhaps, despite her social awkwardness, she would fall in love and start a family. Then one day, she began what would turn into a lifelong pattern: she disappeared.

In fall of 1946 when Sara Jane was 16, she left home for school at Stonewall Jackson, but she never showed up. That evening didn’t return home. She hadn’t left a note. And she hadn’t mentioned to anyone that she was going anywhere. Her parents were frantic. Her schoolmates were questioned, along with teachers, drama tutors, and members of Spanish club and the Civil Air Patrol. No one knew of any school-related activities or possible relationships that would have called her away.

Ruth and Olaf mounted a full search, but they could find no sign of her. Finally, they reported her disappearance to the police. The police could find no trace of her either.

Then, three days later, she returned as suddenly as she had disappeared. She looked just as she had when she left for school. She gave no explanation.—just. Where had she been? But Sara Jane refused to talk to anyone, and would not explain what had happened. Ruth thought she might have been abducted and sexually assaulted. She had her daughter examined by the family doctor, who reported no signs of “abuse.” She was not injured, did not appear traumatized, and apparently had not been kidnapped. Sara Jane was silent. Eventually, Ruth chose to explain her child’s disappearance as “amnesia,” and left it at that.

Sara Jane resumed her life at school without a word of explanation. Upon graduating in 1947, she stayed at home and she decided to focus her future on a life in the medical community—which, at a time when few women even contemplated becoming doctors, meant becoming a nurse. She was easily admitted to Charleston’s St. Francis Hospital School of Nursing, where she built a record as a top-notch nursing student. Her brother Skip said that the reports from the nursing school administrators were glowing. Of course, nothing less than perfection was acceptable to young Sara Jane Kahn. However, soon as she got within reaching distance of the brass ring, she passed it by and went in search of something else. Her parents were puzzled at this sudden change of heart but received no explanation.

At the end of the semester in nursing school, instead of making summer plans or signing up for fall classes, she abruptly dropped out of school and joined the Women’s Army Corps (WAC). The WAC was formed by Congress in 1942 and stayed a separate service until female forces were integrated.

Women service consisted of relieving thousands of men of their clerical assignments, and many performed nontraditional jobs such as radio operator, electrician, and air-traffic controller. After the war the government requested former servicewomen to reenlist to meet the staffing needs of army hospitals and administrative centers.

Private First Class Sara Kahn was assigned to a unit in the Carlisle Barracks in Pennsylvania and left Charleston forever. She had traded in starched white nurse’s uniform for military khakis, and a brand new persona appeared. Sara Jane, striving as always for maximum achievement, proclaimed that her goal was to qualify for Officers Candidate School. And after scoring top grades on the written qualifying test and performing all military details—including firearms training—with excellence, she was duly selected for OCS.(1) Attending OCS was Sara Jane’s opportunity to become a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army. She would have gone to Fort Benning, Georgia, to attend an initial 12 week training course for evaluation of her strengths. Upon graduation from the training, she would have become a second lieutenant .

Almost immediately, however, she did two things to ensure she would never be an officer. The first event was a recurring record of what the military labeled “fainting spells.” These culminated in a very public episode in the spring of 1950, while she was on furlough in Washington, D.C.

The second was marrying Marine Staff Sergeant Wallace E. Anderson, a military officer at Carlisle. Even though marriage was considered grounds for being barred from OCS, Sara Jane married him anyway. Anderson was one of the officers that recommended Sara Jane for Officer’s Candidate School. He had observed her quiet discipline. He reasoned her quiet demeanor as her serious commitment to the military.

The Mall was aglow with pink cherry blossoms. Twenty-year-old Sara Jane, alone and out of uniform in a neatly tailored light pastel spring suit, had joined a public tour of President Harry S Truman’s White House. At the end of the tour, she walked slowly away from the tour group and across the White House lawn—and dropped to the ground, apparently in a dead faint.

Bystanders and Secret Service agents rushed to her assistance. When she regained consciousness, she claimed to know neither who she was nor where she was supposed to be. Finding no identification papers of any kind, the Secret Service agents brought her to Walter Reed Army Hospital for assessment. As the nurses there undressed her for bed, they discovered something odd: a small folio of photos stuffed up under the bodice of her dress. All the pictures were of Sara Jane.

“Mystery woman collapses on White House Lawn!” screamed headlines in the Washington Post.(2) The paper published several of her photographs, and other newspapers reprinted them with inquiries as to whether anyone could identify the mystery woman who had collapsed on the White House lawn. They didn’t have to wait long: her mother in Charleston and her husband in Pennsylvania both saw the photos, and rushed to Sara Jane’s hospital bedside to identify her. Her memory soon returned, but the FBI was suspicious. Their investigation concluded that Sara Jane had purposely left all of her identification behind, some at her barracks and some at the hotel.

Sara Jane wasn’t fooling anybody. Her husband and her family recognized the bid for attention for what it was, and they recognized what they called “Sara Jane‘s White House illness” as part of a pattern of behavior that they’d seen before. They had watched her set herself one difficult goal after another, work intensely to reach it. But as soon as it became clear that she actually could achieve the particular objective, she’d bail out. Barely an adult, she had already achieved two of her goals: becoming a nurse and becoming an Army officer. She seemed headed for a life of failure after failure.

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1. According to newspaper reports, official records of Sara Jane Moore’s military history were destroyed in a government warehouse fire in 1973

2. Charleston Gazette 1948