Early life
Russell William Stover was born in a sod house south of Alton, Kansas, in Osborne County, Kansas, one of three children of John and Sarah Stover. His mother died when he was young and the family moved to Iowa City, Iowa, where he attended Iowa City Academy and Iowa State University where he studied chemistry. He then became a salesman in Chicago, first for a candy company, and then for a tobacco company
In 1911 Stover married Clara Mae Lewis, whom he had met at the Iowa City Academy, and they moved to a 580-acre (2.3 km2) farm in Saskatchewan, Canada, which they received as a wedding gift. On the farm, they raised growing wheat and flax, but after a year they considered the venture to have been a failure, and in 1912 they moved to Winnipeg.
Stover then re-entered the candy industry. He first went to work for a Minnesota candy company and then for the A. G. Morris Candy Company in Chicago. In 1918 the couple moved to Des Moines, where Stover worked for the Irwin Candy Company, and then they moved to Omaha, Nebraska.
Source:
wikipedia