"Our Herbal Heritage" - Six Generations!

In 1850 Philliponc Muller Pross, a German Herb Doctor living in Poland who was quite famous in the medicinal application of herbs and their uses, taught her daughter Marta about herbs. Marta Katharina Pross Loth in turn taught her son-in-law Samuel Ludwig Elgert about herbs. Samuel, a teacher and lay-minister, also became a well known herbalist passing his herbal expertise to his first born child Ottylie Elgert, one of thirteen. Ottylie came to America in May 1903. She married and while she lived in Reading, Pennsylvania, made her own cough syrups, camphor rubs, goose grease salves and loved to garden. Ottylie Elgert Peplau passed her love and knowledge of plants to the last born of her five children, Bertha Peplau Reppert (1919-1999). Bertha instituted The Rosemary House, Inc in 1968. She wanted to make herbs and herbal products available to everyone through her one-of-a-kind retail herb and spice gift shop. Her herbal expertise has been captured in the many books and booklets she has authored. Over the three decades The Rosemary House, Inc has been in business, Mrs. Reppert and her family have striven to add new herbal products every year. More than six generations later Bertha has happily passed her herb knowledge and lore on to her last born daughter. (#4, Susanna Reppert-Brill) Susanna now manages The Rosemary House, Inc, maintaining both the retail and the growing wholesale aspects of the busy family business. Please come see us and visit our gardens.