LOUDOUN COUNTY, Va. — The scene was set with a captivating, almost poetic elegance, reminiscent of the opening of an Agatha Christie murder mystery. “On the frosty morning of Jan.
13, 1932, the hard-riding, fox-hunting socialites of Loudoun County Virginia awoke to find murder in their midst” - Time magazine, May 8, 1933. The murder of Agnes Boeing Ilsley, a former Fargoan, was far from fiction. Her death and the subsequent capture of her killer paved the way for significant changes in jury selection practices and marked a pivotal moment in the advancement of civil rights.
It also helped chart career paths for a Supreme Court justice and civil rights icon. A Minto girl Agnes Boeing was born on June 14, 1891, (some records list her birth year as 1890) in Wisconsin to Julius Boeing and the former Amelia Kruggel. The family, which also included Agnes’ younger brothers, John and Paul, moved to Minto, North Dakota, where Julius worked as a pharmacist.
By 1920, U.S. Census records show the family had moved to Fargo.
They lived at 726 Broadway, near where the Sanford Broadway Clinic is today. ADVERTISEMENT After attending a private girls' school in Illinois and receiving a bachelor’s degree in home economics from the University of Wisconsin, Agnes worked as an extension agent in Wisconsin and later at North Dakota Agricultural Colleges (now NDSU) in Fargo. According to Forum reports, she was “widely known” and respected by North Dakota women for her work in home econom.