 The late Frank X. Kaufman, who was killed
in an automobile accident in November, 1923, and whose widow is still living on her well kept place on
rural mail route No. 2 out of Ferndale, was a resident of this state for almost forty years and of
Whatcom county for more than twenty years, and there were few men in the country who had a wider or a
better acquaintance than he.
Mr. Kaufman was a native of the old Keystone
state and was reared in Minnesota. He was born in Manayunk, Pennsylvania, in 1850, and was a son of
Charles and Lena (Stimmler) Kaufman,
both also natives of that state, who, when their son Frank was but a boy, moved with their family to
Minnesota and became pioneers in Carver county, that state. It was thus that Frank Kaufman grew up
on a pioneer farm not far southwest of the cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis. As a young man he
made his way down the river and became located at St. Louis, where he presently was married, and for
some time made his home there, later going back to Minnesota and becoming engaged in farming in Carver county. After seven years of farming there he moved west into Swift county in the Minnesota Valley country and was there engaged in farming until 1885, when he came out to the coast country and became engaged in railroad construction work in Oregon and Washington. In 1890 he brought his family here and located at Aberdeen, where he was engaged in the liquor business for something more than ten years, or until 1901, when he came to Whatcom county and became engaged in that business in Bellingham, at the same time buying the old McGinnis farm and employing men to clear and develop it. In 1913 he bought a tract of ten acres in Pleasant valley, the present home, and to this added by later purchase until he had fifty-three acres, a part of which afterward was sold, so that the home farm now consists of thirty acres. For two years Mr. Kaufman remained in business in Bellingham, and he then devoted his attention to his farming interests and also developed a good dairy business. He was actively employed along this line
until he met his tragic death in a highway accident in the vicinity of Custer, November 15, 1923, he
then being seventy-three years of age.
It was on June 24, 1870, in the
city of St. Louis, that Mr. Kaufman was united in marriage to Miss Barbara Hammers,
and to this union were born eight children, namely: Jacob, who died in childhood; Frank, now living in
North Dakota; Mary, who married Harvey Phillips and is making her home with her mother; Kate, who died at
the age of twenty-one years; Emma, who married P. J. Stedman and died in 1918; John, now living
in California; Peter, who died in infancy; and Joseph J. Kaufman, who lives in Seattle and is engaged in the
furniture business. Mrs. Mary Phillips, who resides with her mother on the old home place, has
five children, namely: Barbara V., the wife of E. L. Laden; Franklin, who married Nellie Duif
and has two children; Alton, a graduate of high school at Aberdeen; and Orvis and Lionel, who are in school.
Since the death of her husband Mrs. Kaufman
has continued to make her home on the farm where she has resided for so many years and where she is quite
comfortably situated. She is a native of Holland and was but a child when about 1857 she came with her
parents, Jacob and Katherine (Wetzels) Hammers, to this country, the family locating in
Minnesota, where she was reared. Mrs. Kaufman has fourteen grandchildren and five great-grandchildren,
in whom she takes much pride and delight.
History of Whatcom County Volume 2, Lottie Roeder Roth, pub. 1926, pgs. 302-305 |
