Rose Buckingham Selfridge

Rosalie Amelia Selfridge was a property developer before becoming the wife of department store magnate Harry Gordon Selfridge. A member of the wealthy Buckingham family of Chicago, she inherited a large amount of investment property. Well educated, she had traveled extensively by the time she met Marshall Field's retail executive Harry Selfridge in the late 1880s. After they were married, the couple remained in Chicago and Rose enjoyed society and her growing family. Later, they moved to London in 1907 when Harry built his new department store on Oxford Street. During World War I, she joined the Red Cross and operated part of their Dorset, England estate as a war-time convalescent hospital. Rose died there during the Spanish flu pandemic.