Here is a picture of the Rodust family, taken when they lived in San Francisco, on Washington Street, near Larkin, about 1885. Left to right, they are: Bernhard (father), “Addie,” “Birdie,” “Daisy” (in front of Frank), “Frank,” Mary (mother).
The father of the family, Bernard Adolf E. Rodust is listed in Record 4913 of the Foreign Born Registry of Voters in San Francisco, California in 1871. His age is given as 37 and his native country is listed as Prussia. (Only adult males were able to be registered voters at this time.)
The children in the family were known by their nicknames all their adult lives. I believe their actual names were Adelaide, Corolla, Mary Margaret Stella, and Adolph Francis Bernhard.
Birdie is listed in the 1880 census as a stepdaughter of the head of the household. Her father was probably Mr. Meyer, Mary Remarque Rodust’s first husband. Mary was better known as Marie when she worked as head seamstress at the City of Paris department store. She died on December 9, 1936, aged 96 years. According to old family stories, she was born in Rochester, New York. Her parents were immigrants from Alsace-Lorraine, and she was fluent in English, French and German. At the age of 16, in about 1859, she joined some friends of the family in a journey to California, in order to take up a position as a seamstress at the City of Paris store in San Francisco. The journey to California included a hike across Panama on the Camino de Cruces (the road of crosses, named for the many burial sites along the pathway).
Mary/Marie Rodust was a strong, resourceful woman. She outlived her two husbands and her two oldest daughters. During her lifetime, women were not allowed to have bank accounts, so she put her savings into real estate, buying small houses and renting them out to other working people. After coming to California, she worked at the City of Paris department store for the rest of her life, eventually becoming head of the alterations department.
An image taken from the U.S. Census of 1880 is given in the image below. Household members shown in this image are as follows:
Bernard Rodust, age 45, is listed as the head of the family. His occupation is listed as a Dry Goods Clerk. His birthplace was Prussia, his father and his mother were both born in Hamburg.
Mary M. Rodust, age 36, is listed as Bernard’s wife, who keeps house. Her birthplace is New York, her father and her mother were both born in Lorraine.
Birdie M. Rodust, age 7, is listed as Bernard’s step daughter. Her birthplace is California, her father was born in Hamburg and her mother was born in New York.
Addie Rodust, age 2, is listed as Bernard’s daughter. Her birthplace is California, her father was born in Prussia and her mother was born in New York.
The next two people on the census list are the youngest members of the household. They are Stella Rodust, aged 10/12, and Adolph Rodust, aged 10/12. Since the 1880 census was taken in June, these two children, 10 months old at the time of this census, would have been born in August 1879. (As I said above, the full names of these youngest children were Mary Margaret Stella and Adolph Francis Bernhard, and they were known as “Daisy” and “Frank” for most of their lives.)
I believe Birdie Rodust died between 1910 and 1920. Addie Rodust died in the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918. Frank and Daisy, the twins, lived to the 1940’s. Frank never married; Daisy was the mother of Victor M. Margutti.
