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| Rose Wachenheim undated photo |
Rose Wachenheim was a family legend, a big presence with a big personality. I'll add vital statistics as I compile them on ancestry.com with a link in the Index at right.
Rose was born 1881, I think the first child to her parents, and the first that survived infancy. She never married, rather becoming a business woman in a prominent Quincy corporation, "The Electric Wheel Company", which made wheels and hubs for farm equipment and heavy equipment.
Rose lived in the
same house from birth until she was near death, over 80 years.
Each Sunday, my parents took our family to visit Rose and her sister, Alice who lived with her. Apparently, Rose could be forceful or dominant. My dad attributed her to the breakup of her sister Alice's marriage, and to his father moving to the other side of town. I don't know how true that is. Rose amassed a comfortable amount of money, invested in stocks, was active in her Lutheran Church, Republican Women, and Eastern Star.
Rose was famously frugal, a stereotypical German American. I recall she once expressed to me, she thought German Americans were unfairly treated after WWI and WWII.
I hope this series of photos, collected from my parents from Rose's estate, is a kind of tribute to this accomplished woman who I recall as being very pleasant to her grandnephews.
In the Electric Wheel Co photo, my uncle Wadsworth Herrmann Wachenheim is also there, front row, third from left.
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| Rose Wachenheim as a child. |
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| Rose Wachenheim as a young woman. |
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| Rose Wachenheim at the workplace. Electric Wheel Company. Quincy Illinois. |
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| Rose Wachenheim at Electric Wheel Company. |
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| Rose Wachenheim at Eastern Star. Rose is a little right of center back row. |
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| Rose Wachenheim at Electric Wheel Company, Quincy, Illinois. |
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| Rose Wachenheim as a young woman. |
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| Im not certain. I think this is Rose with her mother. |
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| Rose Wachenheim as a young woman. |
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| Kodachromes faded badly. Like memories. Rose Wachenheim as I remember her. 1960s. |
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Rose in her rose garden in the early 1960s. Im not certain whether it was Rose or Alice who did the work of growing the roses.
I was in high school when Rose died, Feb, 1972. I wish now I had known her better.
Three photos of Alice Wachenheim at very different times of life. Alice had married young, to Fred Smith, then divorced and never remarried. I'm not aware that there were any children, and think probably not. For most of her life, Alice lived with her sister Rose at the same house where they were born. I think Alice was the main gardener there, as well as shoveling the snow. She started hybrid tea roses, by sticking rose stems into the ground, and covering with glass jars to maintain then humidity and prevent wilting while they took root. Alice once swam the width of the Mississippi River. She was always a sweet person.
