The Emporia Gazette, 11 Jul 1959
"MUSEUM NOTES, by Orville W. Mosher, Curator, Lyon Co. Museum
   Your curator with Mrs. Mosher and Johnny, recently had a delightful old-fashioned visit with one of the brightest young old men of Lyon County - George Roberts, and with his daughter, Mary L. Halstead of Olpe. At more than 93 years of age, he has retained his native wit and narrates experiences about his beloved town with relish and gusto. To the aging and retired he sets up a sturdy model of how to handle the later years with distinction, looking forward to each new day as a precious gift.
   His father came to Wisconsin from Cornwall, in the southwest corner of England, which as he expressed it, is only separated from the Welch by a barbed-wire fence.
   Mr. Roberts was born at Dodgeville, Wis., but in 1887, when he was 21 years old, he migrated to Olpe, and from that time for 14 years he taught school in this region teaching in winter and farming in the summer. In his early experience he boarded for $10 a month and once lived all winter for $25. Usually his school salary amounted to $50 a month for seven months. Several of his jobs were country schools such as the Furness School, the Verdigris School, the Jacobs School near Neosho Rapids and the Section School which still exists. The others are long since gone but their memory remains in the neighborhood titles. Some of his pay he took out in "boarding-around." There was not enough ready cash to pay a decent salary, so the parents of the children helped out by rooming and boarding the teacher. Fortunately he didn't have to shift around much. He liked his work. "I never spanked a boy just took the cantankerous one up on my lap and explained carefully where the lad was going wrong" Mr. Roberts explained.
   When he was 30 years old he carried mail on the rural routes out of Olpe, a pleasant job, as his way ran through the various neighborhoods where he had previously taught. There was not much money in it. He started out with $60 a month and later to $75. That sounds like good pay for those days, but he had to keep three or four horses to handle the job right. His route extended 28 miles, a distance which he was able to cover in the period from 8 0'clock in the morning to 4:30 in the afternoon - pretty good traveling for a team and mailwagon.
   He was not allowed by the Government to take passengers or to carry packages for friends along the route, but the old "Star Routes" used to do this. For instance, the old Elco-Verdigris Route received a bonus of $75 a year. A surrey carried the passengers twice a week and a charge could be made for anything not permitted to go through the mails, such as matches and dynamite. As Mr. Roberts said, there was never much money in Rural Free Delivery but with the help of his good wife, who on occasion, kept boarders, they got along all right. As he phrased it, he said how beautifully Margaret Heacock of Section neighborhood looked after her ailing mother, and he figured she would look after him just as well in any crisis of life that should come up, so he proposed, was accepted and married in 1891. Three children were born - all of whom are living.
   He has always been a Republican and can recall that as a boy of only 11 years of age he carried a torch, a tine can with lighted kerosene in it, in honor of the success of Hayes and Wheeler after the disputed election with Tilden.
   Recalling the early days, he narrated that the first settlers had rather rough sledding, for they were not used to frontier conditions - but soon Frenchmen came in, and they knew how to work. After them came the Germans, and it is hard to beat a German for thrift, and soon their well-built homes were going up. Nearly all were Roman Catholics with Father Perrier, who came from a theological seminary in the small French town of St. Pierre-le-Benit (Saint Peter the Blessed) in the Department of Savoy, founding the Olpe church. Catholics and Protestants always got along well together, as neighbors helping each other out in good and bad times.
   The place was first known as Bitlertown, but when it became a station on the Santa Fe, the task of renaming was assigned to August Flishe. He decided to change the name to Olpe to satisfy German friends, a number of whom had come from the city of Olpe in Westphalia, Germany. Just the other day a New York City police captain by the name of Olpe wrote to find out if the town had not been named after one of his ancestors, and he must have been disappointed when I had to tell him that the name came from other sources. However, I praised the town highly and told him he had better visit Olpe in the fall of the year and taste the delicious refreshments that the women serve at the church suppers.
   On rare occasions there was excitement in Olpe - such as when the bank was robbed back in the early 1900's. Mr. Roberts said he doubted if the robber got as much as $600 for in those days there was little money around.
   He had a lot of luck with his corn. On new land, he once produced corn that stood 16 feet high that he stood up by a store front for the whole world to see. No doubt the "Olpe Optimist," a newspaper published there would have been glad to brag about that championship corn.
   Always of an accommodating nature, Mr. Roberts was prepared to be of value in the generous exchange of neighborly help, whether it was to ride herd, bed down the cattle when the cowboys had to go to town, or to go in a hurry for the "granny-woman" an old expression for a midwife when some woman was "expecting." He and his wife organized a Sunday School and once had as many as 90 members at Summit. Old Civil War veterans came to town and had their pictures taken together, of which a copy is in the family showing his wife's father and uncle among the soldiers.
   He is proud of Olpe with its population of 387, its two grocery stores, two cafes, two filling stations, machine shop, meat locker plant, beauty shop, garages, bank and workers on the Panhandle Eastern Pipeline with sixty men helping to support the town. There is, too, the Catholic Church, the Methodist Protestant Church and an excellent school system."
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Obituary:
The Emporia Gazette, Emporia KS -Mon, 17 Aug 1959
"GEORGE ROBERTS DIES.
OLPE—George H. Roberts, Olpe's oldest citizen, died Sunday afternoon [16 Aug] at his home. He was a retired school teacher and rural mail carrier. He was a member of the Methodist Church.
   Funeral services will be at 2 p.m. Wednesday at the Roberts-Blue, Barnett Chapel, Emporia, Conducted by the Rev. Luther E. Sharpe. Burial will be in Pleasant Ridge Cemetery.
   Mr. Roberts was born Nov. 13th, 1865 at Dodgeville, Wis. He came to Lyon County in 1887, and taught school in the county for 17 years and carried mail for 22 years. He married Margaret (Dolly) Heacock March 10th, 1891 in Section neighborhood. She died Nov. 11th, 1911.
   Survivors include a son, Chester L., Russell; two daughters: Mrs. H. C. [Isla] Nelson, and Mrs. H. F. [Mary Lou] Halstead, Olpe; three grandsons, three granddaughters, and 18 great-grandchildren."