rosenoffa
Transcribed from "An Illustrated History of The Big Bend Country, embracing
Lincoln, Douglas, Adams and Franklin counties, State of Washington",
published by Western Historical Publishing Co., 1904.
ALEXANDER F. ROSENOFF, of the
firm of Rosenoff & Company, Ritzville, Washington, was born in Russia,
October 15, 1873. His parents, Fred and Catherine (Taut) Rosenoff,
were born in Russia though of German extraction one generation removed.
The family has always spoken the German language, conformed to German customs,
and in no sense were they Russians except in legally being subjects of
the czar. They came to the United States from Russia in 1877, settled
in Nebraska, thence to Walla Walla, Washington, and thence, in the fall
of 1882, to Adams county, where they filed on land four miles northwest
of Ritzville. The father, now a retired farmer, was in his youth
a wagonmaker by trade, and is a man of clever mechanical genius.
Both parents are now living in Ritzville.
From his seventh year Alexander F. Rosenoff
has lived in Washington continuously barring the time spent by him in acquiring
his education at eastern schools. At the age of eighteen he entered
the German theological seminary at Crete, Nebraska, remained there two
years, then enrolled in the German and English college at Wilton, Iowa,
graduating with the class of 1896. Three years later he entered the
state normal school of Indiana at Valparaiso, registering in the pharmaceutical
department, from which he graduated the same year. Before taking
this course, however, he had engaged in the drug business with W. L. Olmstead
as partner, at Ritzville, who conducted the business while our subject
was in school. John F. Rosenoff bought Mr. Olmstead's interest when
our subject returned from school. The firm is well established and
owns a two-story brick of large dimensions in the heart of the city.
It carries an eight thousand dollar stock and is fully as well equipped
as any high class metropolitan pharmacy.
Mr. Rosenoff has three brothers and one sister,
John F., Henry, Jacob, and Lizzie, wife of John Kanzler.
On April 15, 1900, at Ritzville, occurred
the marriage of Alexander F. Rosenoff to Daisy W. Clark, a native Iowan,
whose father, also a native of Iowa, comes of an old American family, which
for many generations has lived in Tennessee. Mr. Clark now lives
at Moscow, Idaho, while Mrs. Clark is dead. Mrs. Rosenoff has one
brother, Claude B., who lives with his father.
Mr. Rosenoff in fraternity circles is identified
with the Prairie Queen lodge, K. of P., is a Republican in politics, though
not an active party man, and both he and Mrs. Rosenoff are members of the
Congregational church. They have one child, Donald, who was born
on November 10, 1903. Mr. Rosenoff has various other property and
business interests, among which may be mentioned stock in the Golden Monarch
Mining & Milling Company of British Columbia and in the Ballard Coffer
mine near Newport.
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