Let Me Introduce You; Robert Owen Roberts Part 1

 Robert Owen Roberts(7) was born 7 September 1856 in Kelloe, Durham, England.  From the 1851 census, we find Robert living with his parents in Staffordshire, England and we find out from the census record that Robert was “deaf.”  We do not know if Robert was born deaf or if an illness caused his deafness.  We do know that there is some sort of issue because; Robert was not christened until he was 7 years old.  He had two siblings christened and it was not until the christening of his third sibling when Robert was finally christened on 11 October 1863 in Northwood.

According to the 1871 census, fourteen-year-old Robert Owen was working in the potteries as a “potters (sic) gilder.”  Robert continued working in the potteries as a potter’s guilder for the next ten years, through the 1881 census.  During this time, he married a widowed, Alice Leese(459).  Alice was born about 1841 in Burslem, she married William Moulton(471) on 12 March 1865 in Wolstanton, and together they had four children:  William(472), Ann(469), John(470) and Frederick(467).  When William(471) died in October 1877, this left Alice a widow with three small children and a baby.  A couple of years later (the exact date is unknown) Alice married Robert Owen Roberts.  Alice was 15 years his senior.

Robert took on the responsibilities of not only Alice but also of her four small children.  It complicates a matter, that not only was Robert deaf, but so were Alice and her four children.   Eventually, Robert became a coal miner in the same mine where his brothers and father had worked, but the rest of the Hugh Roberts(1) family left England and immigrated to the United States in 1886.

Robert and Alice went on to have two children, Margaret(460) and Hugh(463) Roberts.  Hugh Roberts(463) was also deaf, but Margaret(460) was not deaf.  Alice died when her young son, Hugh, was about 12 years old leaving a forty-year-old Robert to care for their small children, and her children from her previous marriage.   

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