As a young man, Adolph spent a year in northern Minnesota working in a lumber camp near Bemidji. He had many stories to tell about that experience. His memory was excellent and he loved to tell stories about the "good old days". For pastime, he played the fiddle quite well and read.

Later, he worked on his parent's farm and volunteered frequently to walk two miles to the Nansen Post Office for his family's mail ... and more! On December 18, 1902, at Saude, Iowa, he married Martha Attleson who had worked at that post office.

After their marriage, Adolph and Martha lived with his parents for one year, then moved to the farm next door. April 8, 1912, they enlarged their farm by purchasing eighty acres from his father, Halvor. They lived on this farm the remainder of their lives except for two years in Lawler. In 1920, Adolph decided to try a different occupation, rented out his farm, and moved to Lawler. Those two years, he was employed with a road construction company and helped build the first paved road in this area, from Charles City to Floyd. In the spring of 1922, he returned to operating his 240-acre farm at the Jacksonville five corners. He and his sons eventually owned and operated 620 acres of land in this area.

Adolph was elected Jacksonville Township Trustee in the nineteen thirties and served as Township Assessor from 1910 to 1913. With an "I was there" interest in area history, he was a Charter Member of the Chickasaw County Historical Society organized in 1954.

Adolph bought a 1915 Model T Ford when there weren't many cars in the area. In 1924, he bought another Model T Ford and these were the only cars he drove. When he bought a Model A Ford in 1929, he was content to let someone else do the driving.

His good sense of humor and ready wit made him a lively conversationalist. When asked why he was in town on an August weekday, he said he was selling spring pigs. After accepting compliments for getting his spring pigs ready for market so early, he left them laughing with, "Of course, I wintered "them!"

He enjoyed extraordinary health, perhaps attributable to doing a lot of walking and keeping slim. His first visit to a doctor's office because of illness was at age 80, and his first hospitalization was at age 82 following a severe stroke.