The IAGenWeb Project: iagenweb.org/fgs/r/robertsonje.txt

Iowa Family Group Sheet for the John Edgar ROBERTSON Family

Submitted by: Gwen Rowley

HUSBAND: John Edgar ROBERTSON
Birth date: 17 Aug 1866
Birthplace: Washington, Washington County, Iowa
Death date: 26 Nov 1954
Place of death: Sioux City, Woodbury County, Iowa
Burial date: 29 Nov 1954
Burial place: Mt. Calvery Cemetery in Sioux City, IA
Other Spouse:
Father: Alexander Cowen ROBERTSON
Mother: Elizabeth Jane CAVIT

Marriage date: 24 July 1891
Marriage place: Council Bluffs, Pottawattamie County, Iowa

WIFE: Mary Ursula BECKER
Birth date: 5 Dec 1864
Birthplace: Tipton, Moniteau County, Missouri
Death date: 19 Sep 1943
Place of death: Sioux City, Woodbury County, Iowa
Burial date: 22 Sep 1943
Burial place: Mt. Calvery Cemetery in Sioux City, IA
Other Spouse:
Father: John Henry BECKER
Mother: Margaret Helen KUTTENKULER

CHILDREN

Child No. 1: Harry Charles ROBERTSON
Sex: M
Birth date: 3 Nov 1892/93
Birthplace: Avoca, Pottawattamie County, IOwa
Death date: 21 JUl 1968
Place of death: Sioux City, Woodbury County, Iowa
Burial date: 23 Jul 1968
Burial place: Mt. Calvery Cemetery in Sioux City, IA
Spouse's name: Frances Lucille HURLEY
Marriage date: abt 1920
Marriage place: Sioux City, Woodbury County, Iowa

Child No. 2: George Edgar ROBERTSON
Sex: M
Birth date: 17 Jan 1894
Birthplace: Sioux City, Woodbury County, Iowa
Death date: 20 Feb 1962
Place of death: Livermore, Alameda County, California
Burial date: 23 Feb 1962
Burial place: Rural Cemetery in Stockton, San Joaquin County, California
Spouse's name: Dorothy COUCH
Marriage date: 13 Jan 1921
Marriage place: Sioux City, Woodbury County, Iowa

Child No. 3: Helen Alta ROBERTSON
Sex: F
Birth date: 3 Apr 1896
Birthplace: Sioux City, Woodbury County, Iowa
Death date: 18 Feb 1982
Place of death: New Ulm, Nicollet County, Minnesota
Burial date:
Burial place: Mt. Calvery Cemetery in Sioux City, IA
Spouse's name: Ronald Henry SPRINGER
Marriage date: 18 Nov 1915
Marriage place: Sioux City, Woodbury County, Iowa

Child No. 4: Louise Cecelia ROBERTSON
Sex: F
Birth date: 10 Sep 1897
Birthplace: Sioux City, Woodbury County, Iowa
Death date: 26 Feb 1971
Place of death: De Moines, Polk County, Iowa
Burial date: 1 Mar 1971
Burial place: Mt. Calvery Cemetery in Sioux City, IA
Spouse's name: Edward Joseph THORNTON
Marriage date: 3 Sep 1917
Marriage place:

Child No. 5: Marie Margaret ROBERTSON
Sex: F
Birth date: 12 Aug 1899
Birthplace: Sioux City, Woodbury County, Iowa
Death date: 9 Mar 1989
Place of death: Sioux City, Woodbury County, Iowa
Burial date:
Burial place:
Spouse's name: Alphonse James THORNTON
Marriage date:
Marriage place:

Child No. 6: John Edgar ROBERTSON
Sex: M
Birth date: 27 Oct 1900
Birthplace: Sioux City, Woodbury County, Iowa
Death date: 29 Oct 1900
Place of death: Sioux City, Woodbury County, Iowa
Burial date:
Burial place: Eberly Cemetery near Sioux City, IA
Spouse's name:
Marriage date:
Marriage place:

Child No. 7: Frederick John ROBERTSON
Sex: M
Birth date: 18 Mar 1902
Birthplace: Sioux City, Woodbury County, Iowa
Death date: 17 Jul 1902
Place of death: Sioux City, Woodbury County, Iowa
Burial date: 17 Jul 1902
Burial place: Mt. Calvery Cemetery in Sioux City, IA
Spouse's name:
Marriage date:
Marriage place:

Child No. 8: Cylde Joseph ROBERTSON
Sex: M
Birth date: 14 Oct 1903
Birthplace: Sioux City, Woodbury County, Iowa
Death date: 7 MAy 1973
Place of death: Riverside, Washington County, Iowa
Burial date:
Burial place: Mt. Calvery Cemetery in Sioux City, IA
Spouse's name: Elma Margaret Gasser RHOADS
Marriage date: 1929
Marriage place:

Child No. 9: Lucille Blanche ROBERTSON
Sex: F
Birth date: 22 Jun 1907
Birthplace: Sioux City, Woodbury County, Iowa
Death date: 30 Oct 1925
Place of death: Sioux City, Woodbury County, Iowa
Burial date: 30 Oct 1925
Burial place: Mt. Calvery Cemetery in Sioux City, IA
Spouse's name:
Marriage date:
Marriage place:

Child No. 10: Louis Anthony ROBERTSON
Sex: M
Birth date: 16 Jun 1908
Birthplace: Sioux City, Woodbury County, Iowa
Death date: 25 Jan 1990
Place of death:
Burial date:
Burial place:
Spouse's name: #1 Zeona CUTTER
Marriage date: June 1933
Marriage place:

Documentation and Sources:

John and Mary worked for a wealthy engineer before they married. The engineer
earned his living building bridges over the Missouri River. Mary worked as an
upstairs maid in this engineer's household. John was employed as a carriage driver
and caretaker of the man's horses, which were extensive and expensive. Whenever
the gentleman desired to go to town for a business conference or whenever the man and
his wife had to attend a social occasion, John would have to get out the team of four
beautiful horses and hook them up to a beautiful carriage and drive them on their trip.

John would say the reason Mary fell in love with him was because whenever he had
to drive the gentleman and his wife places, it was required that he dress up in
swallowtail red coat, white trousers, black shiny boots and a shiny black top hat. In this
outfit Mary simply couldn't resist him, so to take her out of her misery he married her.
He would tell this story to his grandchildren and Mary would slap him on the shoulder and
say, "Quit telling all those lies to my grandchildren." He was a very funny man. They were
married over 52 years.

According to Hope Gregg: She only lived a block away from her grandma and
grandpa Robertson. They lived a frugal life and didn't have much money. They raised
their children with no frills. Grandma Mary was very strict, no nonsense type. She was a
good cook and her favorite was making angel food cakes and sold them. They were
made in a wood stove. She did all her cooking on a wood stove. She was very religious
and lived right across the street from Saint Boniface Catholic Church (which they
attended). On Sunday she would get all her children ready for church and and she was
so exhausted that she sometimes didn't make it to church herself. She also took in
boarders to make a little money. I used to spend time at her place as she did lots of tube
painting on velvet and she taught me how to do it. She sewed like crazy for her
children...she even sewed for other people.

Grandpa John Robertson was a jolly person. He was quite a story teller and full of jokes.
He wasn't educated and jobs were hard to come by. He worked for a wealthy family doing
odd jobs and driving a sleigh in the the winter time. Then he worked for the railroad for
awhile. They barely made a living all their life. Grandma Mary handled all the money they
earned. When they were older the only earnings they had was Social Security and lived in
a little apartment on the second floor. Then when Grandma got sick they came to live with
us and Grandma Mary died at our house. She was 73 years old. She lived just long enough
to see my first baby born. Then Grandpa Robertson came to live with my folks. He got
gangrene in his leg and they had to cut it off and then my folks put him in a nursing home as
mom couldn't lift him. He died at age 83.

She had a strong dominant personality. She read her German Bible everyday and when
moving to Sioux City, Iowa she insisted on going to St. Boniface Catholic Church because
it was German parish. She was a strong practicing Catholic who attended daily mass and
who frequently went to confession, but only in the German language.

She was a tall women, large boned, who had very definite ideas about how things were
to be done. She stated her concerns quietly and firmly and then did not deviate from her
own sense of right and discipline. She was a doer and a women of action and of work.
Too bad she could not convey to her husband and children this high degree of personal
commitment and dedication. None of them could hold a candle to her as the saying goes.
Why couldn't Mary pass on her highly developed self discipline? Possibly the answer was
John. He was strictly a character who was easy going in personality and manner. Where Mary
was a worrier and introspective, John was an optimist who told jokes and talked his way
through life's situations. his favorite expression to his wife when she got on his back about
something was, "Now, Mary!" When things got too tough around the house John would get all
dressed up in his dark blue suit, his high-starched collar, with his gold watch and chain hanging
from his buttoned vest, and trek on down to an old man assembly area and hang out at West
6th and Douglas streets. He would find various cronies at this location and the old men including
John would discuss the more important pipe bowls of Prince Albert tobacco, chewing carefully
carved slivers of plug tobacco, and sniffing snuff. These old men would stand on the North West
corner and look over at the Journal's bulletin board flashing the latest news stories and make
caustic comments about the developing world situation.Mary used to refer to these trips to the
Journal corner as a "Bunch of old bums who liked to go down and stand on the corner
exposing their bellies to the West wind."

When Mary really got mad at John and wanted to punish him, she made him clean out his large
brass spittoon. As mentioned before he was a tobacco addict and he was always chewing, be it
the plug type or the loose shredded sweet type. Of course when you pursue this type of habit
you have to have a place to spit, ergo, the large brass spittoon. When she was very mad at him,
she made him clean the spittoon as many as three times a day.

I never heard her criticize the habit itself. I never heard her even remotely suggest that he give
tobacco up, even though during the depression years when he had lost his job with the Railway
Express, money for tobacco was hard to come by. I once asked him why he chewed and smoked
so much and after thinking about it for a moment said, he guessed it was to overcome the smell
of horses in his nostrils. John pointed out that all his life he had been around horses and stables.
He said that if you were going to work around horses the smell of good tobacco was better
than what the horses could conjure up.

John was a Prince Albert man. He would buy Prince Albert tobacco in the small pocket tin and
the large Prince Albert humidor can or jar. I remember as a child my mother never had any doubt
when it came to the question of what should we give to grandpa Robertson for Christmas or his
birthday. It was always a form of a tobacco product, usually the Prince Albert humidor can or jar.
It was because of tobacco users like him that the old joke concerning Prince Albert became so
popular.You know, about April first (April Fool's Day) young teenagers would get on the phone,
and call some retail store or tobacco shop, and ask if the had Prince Albert on the can and when
the answer was yes, tell the person to hurry up and get off the can as nobody should be permitted
to be on the toilet that long__Ha! Ha!

John and Mary have long been gone to their just reward, but I still remember them with fondness
and respect. I can still conjure up the image of my tall stern, German grandmother, with her no
nonsense facial expression standing beside her short, smiling, bald husband. He was all of 5'5"
tall, grinning out at the world from under his white well trimmed General Pershing moustache.
And the reason he is grinning is that she has just sternly told him that he is going to have to clean
the spittoons of heaven for the third time that day. Rest in Peace.

Sources:
Cemetery records, death cert, 1900 census, 1920 census, and 1930 census all for
Woodbury Co.,IA Son Harry have 1930 census Sioux City, IA.
For Mary Ursula Becker have death cert, church rec, cemetery rec & funeral announcement
from newspaper.
George Edgar have cemetery rec, obit, death cert, funeral card, funeral rec, marriage cert,
military discharge papers, baptism from St. Boniface Catholic Church, 1930 census Woodbury
Co, IA