^"I^ERICA.^ 



<5L>: 



37th Year. 



CHICAGO, ILL., MARCH 25, 1897. 



No. 12. 



REV. STEPHEN ROESE. 



We received notice last week of the death of Rev. Stephen 

 Roese, of Salem, Pierce Co., Wis. He died March 9, 1897, 

 after a lingering illness, aged nearly 08 years. Some years 

 ago he was well known as a contributor to the columns of the 

 American Bee Journal, and often translating interesting arti- 

 cles from German periodicals. 



His first wife, formerly Kathrine Wurst, died Dec. 13, 

 1S6.5, at East Farmington, Wis., leaving him with four small 

 children, namely : Augustus, Lizzie, Alfred and lua. He then 

 moved to Davenport, Iowa, where he married Martha Olson, 

 Dec. 2(5, 1866, who still survives him. By this union three 

 children were born : J. C. Roese, Mrs. Minnie Wagner, and 

 Rosa C. Roese, who preceded her father into the Valley of 

 Death two years ago last December. 



In the American Bee Journal of April 6, 1889, there ap- 

 peared the following sketch of Mr. Roese, written by himself : 



I was born July 3, 1829, in the town of Wohra, Electoral 

 Hesse-Cassel. My parents were at one time well-to-do farm- 

 ers ; my father having served in the great war against Napo- 

 leon Bonaparte, from 1806 to 1815, in both the decisive 

 battles of Leibzig and Waterloo. He was given to strong 

 drink, which brought the family to want and loss of home. 

 My good mother died when I was 10 years of age, and my 

 father was accidentally killed (while Intoxicated) by a wagon 

 being upset in a dug-out road, leaving me an orphan at the 

 age of 13. While standing at my father's grave, and seeing 

 my last earthly hope lowered into its bosom, I gave myself 

 into the keeping of Him who has promist to be " a father to 

 the fatherless," and vowed sacredly to God, by His help, that 

 as whisky had killed my father, it should never kill me. This 

 promise laid the foundation for my life of total abstinence. 



At the age of 20 I was drafted into the military service, 

 in 184:9, at the time of the general revolution in Europe, and 

 my five years of military service was a constant equipment, 

 and moving to and fro during the Crimean war. On petition 

 I was granted a furlough to go on a visit to Holland. At Rot- 

 terdam I took passage for London, England, where I was in 

 a strange land with a strange language, making my home 

 near White Chapel, London. I met with a German missionary 

 there, whom I assisted in his ardent labors, and belpt in the 

 Sunday school. 



After three months in that noted city, I longed to cross 

 the Atlantic, the land of the free, where my sister in Rockland 

 county, N. Y., was waiting for me. On my arrival at New 

 York, Oct. 30, 185.5, by recommendation of the German Lon- 

 don Missionary Society, I was employed as colporteur among 

 the Germans by the American Tract Society. During that 

 four years I studied and fitted myself for a better work. By 



experience and change of views I became connected with the 

 Baptist Mission, and entered the services of the American 

 Baptist Publishing Society as missionary among the Germans 

 in the Upper Mississsippi Valley, from which service I was 

 compelled, by sickness, to retire two years ago. I am now 

 doing Bible work for the same society, as my health and 

 strength permits. 



For many years I had a longing desire to study the nature 

 of honey-bees, but I feared their stings. At last I became 

 owner of a colony of bees, which I moved in midwinter, and I 

 wonder now how they lived through, for I nearly worried 

 them to death, carrying them up and down stairs until, in the 

 spring, hardly a handful of bees were left. They swarmed, 

 but the next winter they all died. 



My desire to keep bees was so strong that I bought 

 another colony the next spring. On taking them home, a 

 distance of 13 miles, the roads being miry and bad, I ventured 

 to drive on the ice of Lake Pepin. After getting on the ice 

 (I did not know it was springy near the shore), I soon found 

 myself with the horse, buggy and bees immerst in water. By 

 the help of some skaters near by, I saved the horse, but my 

 bees could not endure so much water, and I had to purchase 

 another colony ; this, however, lived and did well until the 

 following winter, when they all perisht. After that I ob- 

 tained a colony of hybrids, and having heard and read of the 

 Langstroth movable-frame hives, and many other improve- 



Rev. Stephen Roeae. 



ments, I was not slow to avail myself of these advantages, 

 and I feel grateful for them, in which all modern bee-keepers 

 are partakers, and which the venerable Father Langstroth 

 was Instrumental in giving to the world. 



The instructive reading of bee-periodicals, the exchange 

 of thought and experience of bee-keepers, queries and) an- 

 swers, etc., all has a tendency to make bee-keeping one of the 

 most fascinating industries in the world. Show me a success- 

 ful bee-keeper and I will show you an intelligent person. 



Intelligence being the moving power In this great onward 

 work, they are a combined brotherhood, ready to sacrifice and 

 stand by each other in time of need. Comparing the tenor of 

 the bee-periodicals at the present date with those of years 

 gone by, it can be truly said that knowledge is increasing. 



