Friends and Acquaintances of Emily Sibley Watson:
Although a Sibley, Rufus Adams Sibley was not closely connected to Emily Sibley Watson's family, being one generation removed and sharing a common ancestor with Hiram Sibley five generations back. He was co-partner in the Rochester department store Sibley, Lindsay & Curr, known to most Rochesterians as Sibley's.
Familial connections aside, Rufus Sibley and his wife Elizabeth Conkey Sibley moved in the same social circles as did Elizabeth Sibley and Emily Sibley Watson, and he is mentioned in several letters from this period, most notably in a letter from Elizabeth Sibley to her daughter dated 2/5/1893, in which she states that "Mr. Sibley is all engaged over building the new Store, the old one on the corner of Main, is to be torn down, a new one put up in place of it twelve stories high." The new Sibley store in the 12-story Granite Building, on the corner of Main and St. Paul streets, was completed in 1893.