Rudolf, Adam

Adam Rudolf, born at Popofkina on the Volga River, Samara, Russia, on January 6, 1873, was the son of a farmer also named Adam Rudolf. After attending popular schooling until the age of fifteen, he followed farming as a livelihood and gained a solid grounding in agricultural fundamentals. He married Annie Lung, the daughter of a well-situated farmer named Henry Lung, and the couple established a household of their own to farm a fifteen-acre property they owned. Seeking new opportunities, they disposed of their holdings in 1902 and crossed the ocean and the continent with their only child to settle in California.

Upon arriving in California, Adam worked in a local vineyard to learn the best methods of managing a viticultural enterprise. In 1911, he purchased a twenty-acre ranch in the Barstow Colony, which was merely stubble when he took hold of it and required persistent hard work to improve. He successfully set out eleven acres of Thompson seedless grapes alongside four acres each of peaches and alfalfa on the property. He joined both the California Associated Raisin Company and the California Peach Growers, Inc. as a stockholder to support their annual work. The family, which includes their son Adam and a girl they are rearing named Marie Busch, are dedicated members of the Free Cross German Lutheran Church in Fresno.