Encyclopedia Dubuque
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ROSE, George DeForest "Bud"
Family History: http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=johnadams&id=I109
ROSE, George DeForest "Bud" (Freeport, IL, Sept. 16, 1879--Dubuque, IA, June 12, 1950). Between 1895 and 1901, at the beginning of his career, Rose was employed in the offices of CARR, ADAMS AND COLLIER COMPANY in Dubuque as an office boy. He accompanied John Taylor ADAMS and Charles Joseph SPAHN, Sr. to California and worked as the assistant general superintendent of the West Side Lumber Company of Tuolumne, California. In 1903 Rose and Charles J. Spahn, Sr., accompanied John Adams back to Dubuque. Based upon their experience in California Rose and Spahn decided to open a chain lumber company. On January 1, 1904, Spahn and Rose Lumber Company was organized. (1)
Rose also held important positions in companies not related to lumber. He was president of the DUBUQUE READY-MIX CONCRETE COMPANY and the DUBUQUE STONE PRODUCTS COMPANY, director of FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF DUBUQUE beginning in 1918, and president of the DUBUQUE BUILDING AND LOAN ASSOCIATION.
President of the ROTARY CLUB OF DUBUQUE from 1922 to 1923, Rose led the group when it organized and appointed an agricultural committee. He was the first president of the Dubuque Community Chest, director in 1934 and later president of the Northwestern Lumbermen's Association for two years, and a trustee of FINLEY HOSPITAL (THE). Rose was an organizer of the Dubuque County chapter of the American Red Cross and served as its chapter secretary from 1917 until 1919. (2)
Active politically, Rose was chairperson of the Dubuque County Republican Committee in 1929. He served as an alternate to the 1932 Republican convention in Chicago and was a delegate in 1936 to the convention held in Cleveland, Ohio. Appointed by Herbert Hoover, Rose represented chain lumber companies on the Lumber Code Authority of the National Recovery Administration. At the time, each branch of the industry had its own system of measurements and standards. Rose, identified as the leader of the faction that desired standardization, successfully led "The Battle of the Thirty-Seconds" which was fought over the thickness and width of sawed lumber. (3)
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Source:
1. Franklin T. OLDT and Patrick J. QUIGLEY, History of Dubuque County, Iowa, Chicago: Goodspeed Historical Association, p. 617
2. "DeForest Rose is Named Director of Lumber Association," Telegraph-Herald, January 18, 1934, p. 5
3. Jared C. Spahn, (Charles J. Spahn was his paternal grandfather), e-mail, May 28, 2014