Obituary: John Edwin Moll - Class of 1908

JOHN E MOLL '12

John E. "Keekie" Moll, Madison, died at the Madison General Hospital on Christmas morning after a short illness from typhoid fever. He is survived by his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Wm. E. Moll.

After the conference football season in Purdue, where he was the football coach, he returned to Madison physically unwell, and he feared that he had overworked during the training period. He began to experience chills and fever and a general break down. These were the first symptoms of serious complications. He probably had the fever a considerable time before he detected it. A week before his death he was taken to the hospital.

The funeral was held on December 28 from his home and from the First Congregational Church. The pallbearers were Albert H. Tormey, '14, M. J. Hoeffel, '13, W.C. Hammersley, Dr. Harry M. Kay, Dr. W.S. Middleton, and M. C. Johnson.

On the morning of his death he received an offer to coach the Ohio State University football team next fall, the position which Coach John R. Richards, '96, resigned last month. Moll would also have had a renewed contract from Purdue University.

As a football player "Keckie" had a wonderful career for eight years. In his freshman year he gave promise to be one of the greatest quarterbacks in the country, and he did excellent work in his sophomore year. Owing to illness, he was obliged to leave school for a year, but in his senior year under Coach Richards he developed into one of the best quarterbacks Wisconsin ever had. He was just about to begin a successful career as a coach when typhoid fever put a sudden end to his ambitions.

John Moll was remembered by his football and baseball teams, also by many intimate friends who sent beautiful flowers. The funeral was one of the larges ever held in Madison.

Originally published in The Wisconsin Alumni Magazine (Volume 14, Number 4) in January 1913

Note: John E. Moll was a member of the 1906 Madison High School football team, but does not appear in the 1907 Tychoberahn senior photo section. For now, his high school class year is speculative and based, in part, on his University of Wisconsin graduation class year.