Cleo Desdemona (Dessie) Roberts (1880-1945)

ROBERTS, JOHNSTON

Posted By: Larry Nelson (email)
Date: 11/4/2001 at 05:50:57

Cleo Desdemona Roberts, known as Dessie, was born on 29 March 1880, to Charles Sylvester Roberts and Martha Ann Brown in Sheridan, Hamilton Co., Indiana. She moved to Birmingham Iowa when she was 18. She taught school for about two years before she attended Cedar Falls Normal School (now Cedar Falls College) and received a teaching credential. For a period of ten years she taught grade school in the Birmingham area. During this time teachers were put up by local parents as part of their salary. One of her students was Governor Beardsley of Iowa. She married Reuben Johnston on 20 September 1911, at the age of 31. Reuben and Dessie took a honeymoon to Chicago, as a prank, her friends/sisters sewed her nightgown bottom together. She quit teaching after her marriage and began raising a family. She and Reuben had three children, Naomi Roberta, Mary Beulah, and Glenn Lynford. Dessie was a member of the Methodist Church. She died on 22 September 1945 at the age of 65.