Biography - Robert Thompson
Robert C. Thompson, Alderman from the First Ward, is one of our best known and most successful business men. He is the son of David and Mary J. Thompson, old pioneers of this section, and was born in this city April 21, 1860, when the town was but a struggling village with no present and little more future. When Robert was four years of age his parents moved to a farm two and three-fourth miles northwest of this city, where they still reside. Our subject received his education in the country schools and the Manchester High School. He taught one term at the Cross Roads School northwest of here. In 1878-9 he attended the Jacksonville Business College. In 1880 he and his brother-in-law, T. W. Conlee, bought a farm near Palmyra. From 1883 – ’87, with the exception of one years as bookkeeper at the Farmers and Drovers Bank here, he was butter maker at the Roodhouse Creamery.
In 1887 he decided to go into the mercantile business, and traded his interest in the Macoupin County farm to A. E. Freeto for his hardware stock. This he sold to F. E. Woolley the following year and moved to Carrollton, where he was engaged in working for the Union Sewing Machine Company. The following year he again returned to Roodhouse and engaged in carpentering, which he followed until 1894, when in company with his uncle, Robert Thompson, he bought out the grocery business of Wilburn Simmons. This partnership lasted one year, when Mr. Thompson bought the interest of his uncle and still continues the business on the north side of the square. His ad can be found elsewhere in this Souvenir.
March 18, 1886 (March crossed out and Nov written in), Mr. Thompson was united in marriage with Mary F. Smith, of Palmyra, Ill. To them one child has been born, Curtis, now five years of age.
Mr. Thompson’s politics are Democratic. In 1886, the first year of township organization in this county, he served as tax collector for Roodhouse Township. In the spring of 1897 he was elected Alderman in the First Ward. He is a member of the M.W.A. Lodge No. 483 of this city. By close attention to business and fair dealing he has worked himself into a lucrative trade which he conducts on a cash basis. Our readers will find his store a good place to trade.
Transcribed 25 Oct 2006 by Linda Jones Craig from Souvenir of Roodhouse, 1897.
