Frequently called to positions of service and responsibility, Joseph Roberts was held in high esteem as a citizen and businessman. Mr. Roberts was a leader in the Dodge county movement to develop proper drainage throughout the county. As director of the Board of Drainage Commissioners of Dodge county, $200,000 were expended and 40,000 acres of land were reclaimed leading to highly profitable agricultural production.
Gentlemen of the Agricultural Hall of Achievement:
A request to present to this meeting of this organization a brief biography and appraisement of the late Joseph Roberts was made by your Secretary-Treasurer, H.C. Filley.
I am pleased to comply with this request - pleased because your distinguished organization has thought an admired friend worthy of a place among those who have achieved so outstandingly in line with the purposes of your organization as to merit a niche in the memory and in the archives of the organization, pleased because it gives opportunity to voice my own personal testimony, based upon a twenty-five year period of rather intimate acquaintance and social contact, to the life, character, and achievements of the subject of this sketch.
Joseph Roberts was born in Cornwall, England, on the 4th of August 1854. His father and mother were farmer folk and spent their whole lives as farmers in their home country. If there is what is claimed for inheritance, then it may rightly be assumed that the occupational success of our subject was the natural outcome of the tendencies passed on from parents to son.
The early boyhood days of Joseph Roberts were lived in his home country and with his parents. He attended school there until he was thirteen years old. At that age, the boy was brought to this country by William H. Hicks who became a farmer in Illinois. With Mr. Hicks he remained until he was twenty-seven years of age. At this time, he came to Dodge County, Nebraska, and bought a farm near Fremont. This was in the year 1881. At that time, he established a permanent residence in Nebraska. For the next four years his time and efforts were given to working and improving that farm. At the end of that period, he disposed of this farm, and for six years he was the representative of Mark J. Coad whose business is to import and sell fine horses. It is probable that in this six year of general contact with various types of people, Joseph Roberts developed the many-sided readiness which aided greatly in his later achievements.
At the end of six years, he terminated his representative connections, bought a fine farm four miles east of Fremont where he lived until his death on October 10, 1932.
In 1892, he married Emma Hicks, the daughter of the man with whom he came to this country. His wife still survives him and resides on the home farm. Mr. and Mrs. Roberts have no children of their own, but adopted a son, Albert, now living on a Douglas county farm.
Your committee to nominate candidates for the distinction of being honored by this organization have selected as one, Joseph Roberts. It is assumed that such nomination has been made by the committee in view of the achievements of the candidate.
Too frequently achievement is ascribed to those who have accomplished spectacular results in assumedly great things - in war, in statesmanship, in finance, in commerce, in merchandising, in agriculture, in education, in manufacturing, in the acquisition of great wealth.
In each of these great enterprises there are few, or many contributing elements. Failure in any of these elements weakens the whole. There is failure in a contributing element when those laboring within the element fail to satisfy the citizenship and industrial need of it. When one has chosen his life work in one of the contributing elements and has definitely satisfied the citizenship and industrial need of it, he has demonstrated such merit as to entitle to accreditation in the honor roll of achievement.
Joseph Roberts unquestionably belongs in this class. He was a good citizen, apparently not planning to be, but being by reason of an inherent tendency to be helpful and agreeable to those among whom he lived. In no way did he show social or business clannish affiliations, that bar to harmonious association among rural and urban communities. He was equally welcome among his farm neighbors, or his town acquaintances.
His frequent calling to positions of service and responsibility was evidence of the esteem in which as a citizen, and a businessman, he was held by his wide circle of acquaintances.
Until relatively recent times, while inherently fertile, much of the land of Dodge county was untillable and generally not highly productive owing to the lack of effective drainage. Joseph Roberts was a leader in the movement for proper drainage throughout the county, and for many years was a director of the Board of Drainage Commissioners of the county. Under the direction and control of this Board, $200,000 were expended and 40,000 acres of land were reclaimed for highly profitable production.
For eight years he served as a member of the county board of supervisors; he represented the county in the state legislature from 1903 to 1905; in 1905 he was elected to the Nebraska State Board of Agriculture and served as its president for two years; for eight years he gave efficient and satisfactory service as county treasurer.
The farm of Joseph Roberts, in acreage, as compared with some others thereabouts and elsewhere is not pretentious. It consists of about 169 acres, but that was enough for its owner. He had the sane attitude that a farm of sufficient size and productiveness to furnish income to enable comfort in living and wholesome release from the hard work incident to farming was enough. He had no desire to add to nor to dispose of his original holdings. The proof of no desire to add to was shown by refusal to purchase an adjoining farm at an attractive price but used the money available for the purchase in making, with his wife, and extended visit to Europe, doubtless to satisfy a longing held from boyhood days. The proof of no desire to dispose of his holdings was shown by his refusal to accept, in the land speculation period, an alleged offer of $500 per acre for his land. When asked why he did not sell in substance he replied, this farm is my home, here I have developed my best thought, and expended my major effort. I shall keep it. Some may doubt the business judgment in this refusal, but none can doubt the highest type of citizenship. Here I quote from one of our leading bankers, a forty or more years acquaintance, Dan V. Stephens:
“As a farmer he was typical in that he represented the old school farmers that we classified as “country gentlemen.” He moved in the circles of the best society, had high aims, and was always gentleman. The question was always uppermost in the minds of his friends how he could live the life of a gentleman, take summer vacations, and casual trips abroad to visit his native country on an income derived from a small farm, but that is exactly what Joseph Roberts was able to do. All of this illustrated clearly his remarkable economic ability.
He belonged to that rare class of men who were able to live very much as men lived on many times his income. He was able to do this through his frugality, his extraordinarily capable management, his uncanny knowledge of relative values of acts and the returns that could be made out of a small investment sparingly made.
It is a remarkable fact that financially Joseph Roberts was probably one of the most successful farmers we have ever had in this county, not measured by the amount of money he accumulated in the end, but by the manner of his living, always maintained himself and family on a scale of respectability that commended him to the attention of his associates in every walk of life. Many men have been able to make a great deal of money out of land, but few men have done so without sacrificing something worthwhile in their efforts to succeed. Joseph Roberts did not sacrifice anything of the natural and normal pleasures of life, but enjoyed them all to the fullest degree, and died free from debt and with a competency for his loved ones.
Following are excerpts from a statement based upon four years of rather intimate official association by former County Judge Waldo Wintersteen, a thoroughly adhesive Democrat.
“Believe it or not, Joe Roberts was an honest Republican. He had an abiding faith in high protective tariff. He honestly believed that a tariff wall so high that no business could be transacted would produce revenue.
Joe was an Englishman who came to this country when a young boy. He became a thoroughly patriotic American, but he never succeeded in getting over the English habit of dropping his “Hs.” When he was county treasurer one of his women clerks was named Hannah, but he invariably called her “Anna.” One day I asked him why he did not call Hannah, “Hannah”. A little testily he said, “Why, I do, Judge…I do call her Anna.”
We were on intimate terms both officially and socially, but we never agreed in politics, but our political disagreements never caused a feeling of resentment on either side. One day I was obliged to go across the railroad to marry an elderly couple, and thinking there might be need for witnesses, I asked Joe to go with me. We found the bride to be nearly, or quite, as old as the prospective groom who was an ex-soldier of the Rebellion, and not highly gratifying to look at. After the ceremony was finished, I said to Mr. Roberts, “Joe, witnesses must always kiss the bride.” Joe replied, “Darned if I do, kiss her yourself.”
He took great pride in his land and frequently claimed that it was the best corn land in the world. He felt highly honored and much elated when his farm one year was used in a corn husking contest, for he was then able to demonstrate to many thousands of people that the claim of great corn productiveness was justified.
He and his wife were a congenial and happy couple, and only a few days before Joe was called to another land, he remarked to me that he was so glad that he and Emma spent the summer on the west coast visiting friends and relatives, because, he said, “Judge, I may not live to have another fine trip and such a wonderful summer as I had last year.”
Joe was always proud of his position on the State Board of Agriculture and the State Fair was one of his hobbies for many years. He was faithful, honest, competent, and ever ready to perform any duty when the call came. He had a higher sense of humor than any other Englishman I ever met. His wit was quick and effectively to the point. He greatly enjoyed the association of his friend, Mr. W.R. Mellor, of Lincoln, with whose family the Roberts spent many happy summers at the cabins of the former on the shores of Minnesota Lakes.”
Whether Joseph Roberts did the work he set out to do or whether, as opportunity opened up, he did it, we do not know. But this we do know. That work was faithfully, fully, and helpfully done.
