6. Ed and Emily Roberts

From left: Ed Roberts, Frank Roberts, Minerva Roberts, Susan Basham, unidentified child

Minerva (Nervie) and Ed were near in age. Who was younger is not known. Ed was born March 30, 1880 and died November 24 1926. He married Emily Powell about 1911. He was 31 years old and she was 17.

Frank came to Meade County first, and opened a store in Weldon. His younger brother followed and worked in the store. The handsome young man met pretty Emily Powell. She was very young and her older brother, Lloyd, was concerned she had had her head turned by an uneducated man. He demanded to see a sample of the gentleman's handwriting. When Lloyd had judged the sample to be that of a person who had been to school, he approved the union.

Emily Ann Powell married Edward H. Roberts when she was about 17 years old. She was born November 8, 1894. They were probably married about 1911. She was the daughter of W. Alfred and Alice Ann Powell. For a long time she was the darling of the family, the only girl with four older brothers: Jasper, Floyd and Lloyd (twins) and James. A baby sister, Zula, came along to provide some diversion, but not before Emily had developed a strong-willed personality that age did not deter.

In the early 1900's Frank Roberts came to Weldon in Meade County and opened a store. He brought his younger brother to help out. Ed was tall and handsome when he met the beautiful Emily. They married and bought a farm just across the way from Doe Run Creek. They settled down to raise a family. Both having been raised on farms, Emily and Ed were no strangers to hard work. They soon had crops in the fields, a vegetable garden planted and some animals. To the side of the farm house a pond kept the attention of their children as they grew. Frances, named for Ed's older brother, Frank, was born December 13, 1914. Lloyd, named for his mother's brother, was born August 21, 1918. Georgia Rose arrived August 28, 1920 and Martha followed August 29, 1922. Life was good, and there seemed no reason to believe Emily and Ed would not continue to prosper. However, in the summer of 1926 Ed began to sicken. It is said he contracted typhoid fever. He did not recover and died November 24, 1926. His funeral was held on Thanksgiving Day. He was 46 years old.

At age 32, Emily was left to raise her children alone. She had a farm that was paid for, and she had a car she never learned to drive. She had not aspired to be anything other than a wife and mother. Typical of her day, she had no job training. Even if she had employable skills, jobs were few and far between in that time. Women, especially, had few opportunities.

She tried to lease the land in an effort to keep her family on the farm. Her children attended Cedar Grove School, with their cousins, just down the road from the farm. However, even with considerable help from her father, she was unable to continue living on the farm and make it productive. She sold the land and moved to Brandenburg with the idea of managing a boarding house. Emily was well known as a wonderful cook. Emily worked very hard, but the stress of caring for her children, as well as providing service for her tenants, wore her down.

No one knows what was in her mind as she struggled. Frances remembers her mother, "...coming home and writing Uncle Frank a letter to tell him she needed help raising the children."

Aunt Emily

by Alice Bondurant Scott

She was quite a business woman, maybe because of necessity with being widowed young with little children.And after she married Uncle Frank and moved to Cloverport, they always had money stashed away. She had her own stash; I don't know how they worked that out, but if anyone else in the family (extended) needed money during the depression and afterward, Aunt Emily was their source. Mother and Daddy did not borrow unless it was for a real necessity, maybe a payment on Daddy's life insurance policy, etc. Because we did not ever have money for anything else during those years.

I recall Daddy getting his good clothes on one morning and Mother told Peggy to put on her good dress because Daddy would take her with him to go see Aunt Emily. I was old enough to know what that meant, and not to ask questions. They walked 2 miles to the Station and got on the down train to Cloverport. That evening they came back on the up train, walked the 2 miles home and told all about their day, or at least most of it. Then Mother and Daddy went into the other room and talked low for a little while, and came back happy.

I recall my own trips on the train just to go visit Aunt Emily and the girls during the summer, and it was like taking a trip to New York. So exciting to see all those travelers going to faraway places, and having the conductor walk through to see that all was well with everyone. He placed a tiny piece of paper on the wall above our seat, and it had the number 38 on it. That indicated the number of miles from our station to our destination. I memorized the names of all the little towns we went through, and recited them to Mother later.

Our cousin, Clyde Powell, would go to visit Aunt Emily sometimes, just for fun usually, and he told me where Uncle Frank kept one stash of his money. (Of course, they wouldn't use banks, after the bank failures of 1930.) Clyde said Uncle Frank showed him a certain nail keg in the hardware section of their general store. Under all the nails in the keg was a compartment for his savings. Clyde and I wondered how many of the kegs had similar compartments. Aunt Emily had certain hiding places for her savings, too, and always had a little cloth bag in her bra. My mother did that after she and Daddy had their store, and had enough to hide. Mother always had hiding places in the house, and she would show us girls where they were, in case "something happened" to her. In the latter years when prosperity had enabled her to fill all the hiding places, she still carried the wad in her bra. She would go with us to buy a new dress or coat, and when it was time to pay for an expensive garment, she would say, "I have to go to the bank", and she would turn her back to us and pull out the money. We would be so embarrassed that she carried it that way. She had a perfectly good purse with some money in it, but that was for smaller purchases. When the tornado of 1974 destroyed their house and blew most things away, Mother walked around in the rubble, looking and looking. I had friends across the river in Indiana who told me that after the tornado, there were hundred-dollar bills all over the hillside on their side of the river. People went there to look for them. I'm sure there were not that many, but tales do get exaggerated.

Aunt Emily had always admired the handsome two-story house between their place and downtown Cloverport. It was near the railroad and I think some prosperous railroad man had built it for his wife. They both died, and the house needed a good owner. One day Uncle Frank took a walk in that direction and came back, telling Aunt Emily "I bought you that house". Maybe he had to open two nail kegs to make that transaction. Who knows. She loved living in the house for a few years.

Well, the women in our family were real characters, but held their own with the world, no matter how bad things were.