My Genealogy Hound

EDWARD W. ROBERTS. In writing of the men who have been actively identified with the settling of Phelps county and the founding, growth and development of the town of Holdrege, mention must be made of Edward W. Roberts, who, as contractor and builder, has done more towards building up the town of his adoption than any other man in it. Mr. Roberts, although a comparatively young man, has led an active, not to say laborious, life, and nowhere are the fruits of his labor to be seen in greater abundance or to better advantage than in the proud and prosperous little town of Holdrege, where he has resided for the last few years.

Edward W. Roberts was born in the town of Union, Rock county, Wis., October 6, 1848. He is next to the youngest of a family of seven children born to Edward and Ann (Thomas) Roberts, the others being three sons and three daughters — Elizabeth, William, John, Sarah, Kate and Albert. His parents were both natives of Wales, came to this country, were married in Ohio, and settled in Wisconsin, where the father died in 1852; the mother resides in Duluth, Minn., with her daughter Kate.

The subject of this sketch was reared on a farm and followed different occupations till he was twenty-three, years old, at which time he went to work at the carpenter’s trade, mastering the craft and afterwards working for some years as a journeyman. In 1879 he came to Nebraska and located at Minden, in Kearney county, soon after that town was started and while Phelps county was still but sparsely settled and the present town of Holdrege was a bare, unbroken prairie. At Minden he worked some at his trade and was also for a while postmaster. Moving to Holdrege when that town started on its career of prosperity about 1884, Mr. Roberts began contracting and building, and he has followed that successfully up to the present time. No man ever visited the town of Holdrege without being struck at once not only with its clean, neat, thrifty, prosperous appearance, but also with the splendid structures, residences and business blocks that line its principal streets and adorn its expansive suburbs. These structures are not the common cheap buildings made of shiplap, putty and paint, usual in the new Western towns; they are large, commodious, well constructed, tastily designed buildings, made of the best material, lumber, brick and stone. Most of these represent the industry, ingenuity and skilled labor of Edward W. Roberts and they are no greater credits to the enterprise and public-spirit of their owners than they are monuments to Mr. Roberts’ skill as a workman and his ability as a man of business. But in building up a town and community Mr. Roberts is the right man in the right place; for he is not only a skilled mechanic, with a thorough knowledge of his calling, but he is an intelligent man of business, a live, progressive, public-spirited citizen. He takes an active interest in all local matters of public concern, and, being a man of strong personal energy, accustomed to pushing ahead in his own affairs, he naturally adopts the same methods in dealing with public matters, and like all men of that kind he frequently finds himself placed at the fore-front in public enterprises and not unfrequently pushed into positions where energy and executive ability are in demand. He is now chairman of the board of supervisors of Phelps county, member of the board of education of the city schools of Holdrege, and one of the city aldermen. Being a man who does not stand back when work is to be done and a good man to lay out work for others, he finds plenty to do.

Mr. Roberts is a man of family and finds not the least of the pleasures of this life in his home, surrounded by his wife and children. He married April 2, 1871, Miss Mary E. Child, who is a native of the town of Barford, Stanstead county, Provence of Quebec. The fruits of this union have been eight children, and as a result of the care with which Mr. Roberts has looked after those matters of family history concerning which his descendants will be most interested in years to come, the names and exact dates of the births of his children and of the deaths of those whom he has lost can here be given. These are — Loova May, born January 28, 1873, at Union, Rock county, Wis., 1:15 P. M.; Eddie Carlton, born September 14,1874, at Union, Rock county, Wis., 12:30 P. M., and died September 18, 1875, at 1:15 P. M.; Emery Raniville, born December 5, 1875, at 1:15 A. M.; Arthur Samuel, born November 22, 1878, at Union, Rock county, Wis., 12:20 P. M.; Ray Ellsworth, born August 15, 1881, at Minden, Kearney county, Nebr., 10:20 P. M.; Clara Maud, born June 19, 1883, at 3:20 A. M., and died August 14, 1883, and Minnie Ulissa, born July 30, 1884, at 4:35 A. M., and died August 25, 1884, and baby daughter who died at Holdrege September 9, 1887, at 3 P. M., just after birth.

Having led an exceptionally active life, Mr. Roberts has had but little time to devote to fraternity work and the cultivation of the social amenities within these orders. He, however, is a zealous member of the Ancient order of United Workmen and takes an active interest in its matters. He has always voted the straight republican ticket in politics.