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Rebecca
Catherine 'Kate' (Warner) Roberts |
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Kate Roberts |
Rebecca Catharine "Kate" Warner -- her middle name also spelled "Kathryn" -- was born on Jan. 26, 1862 in Millersport, Fairfield County, OH, the daughter of Benjamin and Nancy Jane (Bateson) Warner.
In 1869, when Kate was a young girl, she and her parents and siblings left Ohio and ventured westward on an overland voyage to Illinois. On the trip, said the Arcola (IL) Record-Herald, "the family was fording a river in their wagon, when the couple's three-year-old daughter, Katherine, who was sleeping [in] the rear of the wagon, rolled out and fell into the water. Her father rescued her from the water and laid the child on Mrs. Warner's lap, who succeeded in reviving her." The awful memory stayed with the mother for the rest of her life.
Kate thus grew up in and around Arcola, Douglas County, IL.
She was unmarried and employed as a pastry cook circa 1900, when the federal census was enumerated.
By 1910, she was single and at age 48 resided in Arcola with her married brother and sister in law, Samuel and Cynthia May (Cox) Warner. The census-taker recorded that she was a nurse in "private homes."
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Bird's-eye view of San Benito, Texas, early 1900s |
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Charles and Kate Roberts |
When her father died in 1914, she was named in his newspaper obituary as "Miss Kate Warner of Arcola."
On July 22, 1922, she married Salem, Ohio native Charles C. Roberts (Oct. 24, 1861-1942).
He was divorced from his first wife, Mary Elizabeth Underwood (1860-1942) and brought four adult stepchildren into the union with Kate -- Watson Mearle Roberts Sr. (1885-1931), Clair Andre Robeerts (1887-1972), Harry Wallace Roberts (1889-1950) and Edith Aileen Hanson (1895-1966).
Their whereabouts have not yet been located in the 1930 censuses of Illinois or Texas.
The Robertses migrated to Texas and in 1933 in made their home in San Benito, Cameron County, TX.
Several of Kate's cousins also resided in San Benito over the years, including Alora (Bush) Johnson, who moved there in the early 1900s and resided at 474 North Reagan Avenue; Mary (Bush) Anderson, who moved in with the Johnsons in about 1926, and died at their home in 1938; and Civil War veteran Henry Bush, who died in the Johnsons' home in 1933.
On June 27, 1933, Kate's mother died in Illinois at the age of 95. Kate made plans to travel to the funeral, but became seriously ill just before leaving, and could not make the trip. Fortunately, she recovered.
The federal census of 1940 places the couple in Cameron County, both at age 78, with Charles generating income as a farm laborer.
The pair moved to Shreveport, LA in the early 1940s. They are known to have traveled to Arcola in September 1942 to visit her 86-year-old brother Samuel Warner and family. Kate became ill and went to recuperate in the home of sister Melsinia Payne in Tuscola.
On the fateful and tragic day of Oct. 2, 1942, while a passenger in Samuel's Model T Ford, the two elderly men were killed when their vehicle was "struck by a southbound Illinois Central freight train at the Jefferson street crossing here," reported the Decatur Daily Review.
The car was demolished. The accident occurred after Mr. Warner's car stalled as it was being driven across the crossing. Witnesses said that a warning signal at the crossing was in operation, but that the men's view of the approaching train apparently was obscured by a parked automobile. Mr. Roberts had been in Arcola for several days visiting Mr. and Mrs. Warner.
His remains were lowered under the sod of Humboldt Township Cemetery in Coles County, also known as the Humboldt Odd Fellows Cemetery.
Kate survived her husband by nearly three years and moved into the Tuscola household of her sister Melsinia Payne. She slipped away into the arms of the heavenly host on July 5, 1945. Funeral rites were led by Rev. C.K. Dillman. In an obituary, the Mattoon (IL) Journal Gazette said that "Surviving are Mrs. Payne and two nephews, Glenn and William Warner of Arcola." A death notice also was published in the Decatur Herald and Review.
Copyright © 2006-2007, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2018, 2024 Mark A. Miner