Frederick Rose is in the grain business and handles his share of the grain that comes to Homer. He has been connected with the grain trade for the better part of his active career, and came to Champaign County about ten years ago, and his name and his enterprise are now known throughout that rich and splendid farming district surrounding Homer on all sides.
Mr. Rose was born in New York City, November 3, 1861, a son of Henry and Anna (Smith) Rose. Both parents were natives of Germany and his father came to America in 1846. He had served an apprenticeship at the blacksmith’s trade in Germany and he worked at his trade in this country both in the East and West. In 1864 he located in LaSalle County, Illinois, and subsequently took up the business of farming. Both parents are now deceased. There were four children: Henry of Zion City, Illinois; Mary, wife of August Beck of Ford County, Illinois; George W. of Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Frederick.
Frederick Rose grew up on his father’s farm in LaSalle County and received a common school education. At the age of twenty he left home and engaged in the merchandise business at Melvin, Illinois. Four years later he concentrated his attention upon the grain trade and from Illinois removed to Boswell, Indiana, where he bought and conducted an elevator for seven years. Following that he was in the grain business at Brookston, Indiana, for nine years, and in 1907 came to Homer and bought the old elevator of the town. He tore down this structure and replaced it with a modern grain elevator with a capacity for 100,000 bushels.
Mr. Rose married, March 6, 1885, Miss Margaret Jackson, who was born in Cook County, Illinois, near Chicago. Mr. and Mrs. Rose have five children: Edward J. and Eva J., twins, the former a grain merchant at Champaign, and the latter the wife of William Mudge of Urbana; Leslie, who died in infancy; Frederick M., a dentist at Homer; and Henry H., who is associated with his father in business. Mr. Rose is a Republican in politics and he and his family are members of the Presbyterian Church.