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WILLIAM COOK ROGERS

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William Cook Rogers, president of the Piqua Handle and Manufacturing Company and one of the city's influential business Men, is a native of the Empire State, having been born at Williamson, Wayne county, a son of William Hayward and Mary Caroline (Cook) Rogers. The Rogers family has been a noted one from the earliest period of American history, and this branch of the family traces its ancestry directly back to the original progenitor, who came to this country with the other passengers on the Mayflower. William Cook Rogers graduated from high school at the age of seventeen years, following which he pursued a course in a business college at Philadelphia. Later, he became identified with the hardware business in the Quaker City, and on coming to Piqua established the W. C. Rogers Manufacturing Company. He later became associated with the Piqua Handle and Manufacturing Company, and the two concerns were subsequently merged, Mr. Rogers becoming vice-president. Later he succeeded to the presidency which he has since occupied, directing the affairs of this important enterprise in a manner that has greatly contributed to its success. Mr. Rogers has various other business connections and is president of the Munsing Woodenware Company, of Munsing, Mich., president of the United States Export Company, president of the Chapman-Sargent Company, secretary and treasurer of the French Oil Machine Company, a director of the Piqua National Bank, and vice president of the National Association of Wood Turners. He is a vestryman of St. James Episcopal Church of Piqua and a member of the board of trustees of the local Young Men's Christian Association. During the war period he took a prominent part in the various war movements and has always been a generous contributor to all worthy civic causes. Mr. Rogers married Margaret, daughter of Robert Lansing and Margaret (Drake) Douglas, the father being the founder of the National Underwriters' Association. Mrs. Rogers is a woman of unusual literary gifts and is widely recognized in literary circles, being the author of several books which have met with exceptional favor at the hands of press and public. Two children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Rogers: Eleanor Margaret, who is a graduate of Oakhurst College, Cincinnati, and Ruth, who is attending Wellesley College. A more detailed statement of the history of the Piqua, Handle and Manufacturing Company will be found in the industrial section of this work. Following is one of the best known of Mrs. Rogers' poems:

They said that Hope was dead, and very deep
They buried her, and made a heart her tomb,
And Sorrow sealed it--set a watch to keep,
So none might enter in that sacred room.
Then Sorrow turned, but closely at her side
One, step for step, kept ever even pace;
Till lifting tearful eyes, all deified,
The risen Hope stood smiling in her face!
Aye, when the Master conquered mortal clay
Into a new, glad world Hope was re-born;
Though buried oft, she smiles on each new day,
Each sunrise brings a Resurrection Morn.

                                 -Margaret  Douglas Rogers.