Allen A. Alderfer had been a merchant and connected with different enterprises in Topeka for many years, and is one of the well known citizens.
He came to Kansas when he was about twenty-one years of age. He was born at Sterling, Illinois, August 16, 1865, a son of Philip and Matilda (Siegfried) Alderfer. Both parents were natives of Pennsylvania, his father of Laneaster, and from that state he moved to Akron, Ohio, and later to Sterling, Illinois, where he is now living retired. He spent his active business career as a cigar maker and farmer. The mother died in Sterling, Illinois, December 24, 1911. The other son is L. S. Alderfer, a tobacconist at South Bend, Indiana.
Allen A. Alderfer acquired his early edueation in the grade schools of Sterling, Illinois. As a vigorous young man seeking the opportunities of the West he arrived at Atchison, Kansas, February 7, 1886, remained in that city about six weeks and then was successively at Junction City, Clay Center and Concordia, spending the summer at the lastnamed place. The following winter and spring he was with the staff of Santa Fe Railway surveyors until they disbanded. Topeka had been his home ever since. For two years he was employed in the Santa Fe shops and then spent seven years with the Topeka Flour Mills Company and the Shawnee Milling Company. With this preparation for an independent career, he engaged in the grocery business at 400 East 8th Street, remained in that location seven years, and had since continued to supply goods of high and reliable quality to his large patronage at 1001 Morris Avenue.
Mr. Alderfer, who had never married, is a thirty-second degree Mason, a member of the Mystic Shrine and of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Politically he is a republican.