John Rose, who for several years had been numbered among the leading oil producers in Montgomery County fields, and resided at Independence, is a thoroughly practical as well as successful man, as his career indicates. When only thirteen he started out for himself, and had since hewed his way through difficulties, through poverty, to a successful position in the world.
He was born February 26, 1861, near Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and is of Scotch parentage. His father, James Rose, was born in Scotland in 1822, was reared and learned the trade of stone mason in his native country, and about 1860 emigrated to Canada. In 1862 he moved his family to Ottawa County, Michigan, and became one of the early farmers there. At that time there were only five white families in the entire township where he settled. He spent the rest of his days actively engaged in farming and died in Ottawa County, Michigan, in 1876. After coming to the United States he was a republican voter, was a member of the Congregational Church and a man of very excellent character. He married Jane Daveney, who was boxn in Scotland in 1832, and who died in Michigan in 1890. They had a large family of children, John Rose being the eighth and youngest. Mention of the others is as follows: William, a farmer at Big Rapids, Michigan; Agnes; Maggie, wife of Ed Buxton, a merchant at Grand Haven, Michigan; Fannie, wife of William Pierce, a farmer at Ionia, Michigan; Anna, a resident of Michigan, and widow of William Waldie, a farmer; Christina, deceased; Hugh, a farmer of Ada, Michigan.
Reared on the pioneer farm of his father in Ottawa County, Michigan, John Rose had such advantages as the public schools of that county afforded, and at the age of thirteen he started out for himself. After spending two years on a farm he went into the lumber woods, and was more or less actively identified with sawmilling and lumbering until 1911. For the past twenty years he had also combined activities in the oil field, and in these two industries had found material for his successful career. As a lumberman and oil man he had operated in the states of Michigan, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Washington, and in the oil fields of Pennsylvania, Kansas and Oklahoma. He spent six menths at Tulsa, Oklahoma, and had been a resident of Independence, Kansas, since the spring of 1913. In May, 1912, he began productive operations in the Kansas ficlds, and had some extensive holdings in Montgomery County. Mr. Rose is manager of the LeJune Oil and Gas Company.
In politics he keeps an independent attitude. He is affiliated with Lake City Lodge of Masons in Michigan. His home is at 209 North Ninth Street in Independence. At San Francisco, California, Mr. Rose married Miss LeJune Kepler, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. P. S. Kepler. Her father is still living, a retired oil producer at Bradford, Pennsylvania. Mr. and Mrs. Rose have three children: A. J., who was born June 23, 1889, is a machinist in Greenville, Pennsylvania; C. G., born March 31, 1897, is a graduate of the eighth grade of the public schools in Michigan, and is now assisting his father in the oil business; Francee, born January 26, 1900, is attending the high school in Granville in Kent County, Michigan.