Roscoe Sheller Papers, circa 1950s-1960s

Roscoe Sheller was a regional writer and businessman from the Yakima Valley of Washington State. He was born in Lanark, Illinois, in 1890 to John and Leafy (Ustic) Sheller. His parents moved to Sunnyside, Washington in 1899 to farm the newly irrigated lands west of the Cascade Mountains. He attended the Acme School at Sunnyside during his early childhood and later other public schools. As a young adult, he ventured into selling automobiles and by the 1920s owned and managed a Ford automobile dealership. As a hobby he wrote short stories and brief histories on the people and places of the Pacific Northwest. Prior to his death in 1981, he published twenty-two books and wrote numerous articles for regional newspapers and journals.