Viola Venetta Rockenbach
Viola Rockenbach, daughter of George Rockenbach III and Sarah (Ott) Rockenbach was born in Deerfield in on December 15, 1876.
Miss Viola Rockenbach was a member of the Amity Club, a literary club and circulating library formed in part by her sister Irene in 1900.
An auxiliary of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union was organized in the early days of Deerfield. Miss Viola Rockenbach served as Treasurer in 1922, and as Vice President in 1925.
Sarah Rockenbach Belcher wrote the following about Viola in 1982. “Aunt Viola did the cooking, cleaning and caring for eleven cats. She waited on Grandpa George, did the washing and kept the family intact by making their home a fun place to go. Every Christmas…using a tulip cookie pattern that Grandma Sarah’s parents brought from Alsace, she made a big tulip sugar cookie…We still make tulip cookies for Christmas breakfast and add an orange and a candy cane.
Aunt Viola was short and cute and loving. She had a dowager hump. As she grew old, the hump became very large and she stooped over in her wheelchair until she became a little curl of loving humanity.”
Viola Rockenbach died on May 23, 1967 and is buried at the North Northfield Cemetary in Northbrook, Illinois.
