In 1885, Ralph and Nancy Jane ROBERTSON sold their farm in Louisa Co., Iowa, near Columbus City, and in 1886 purchased a farm two miles South of the east edge of Arispe where they lived for 32 years and raised four children, Robert (Rob or Bob), Bertha, Sarah Jane (Sadie), and Cressie. Ina, their oldest child, died of diptheria at age 18 months. The children attended Mt. Vernon School one-half mile west of their home. In 1901 Rob married Chloe PITKIN. Chloe taught one year at Mt. Vernon before their marriage. They began their married life on a farm about one-half mile north of the home place. They lived there 47 years before retiring to a home in Arispe where they lived for 17 years, then moved to an apartment in the old Afton Hotel. Rob died in 1965 and Chloe in 1970. Their son, Earl, and his wife, Louise, moved to his parents farm and lived there until 1968, when they retired to Creston. Louise died in 1984. Earl still resides there.

Bertha, after completing eighth grade at Mt. Vernon, attended Atchison County High School, Effingham, Kansas for a few weeks, but became ill and returned home. She then prepared for teaching by attending Afton Normal School. Before she married, she taught at Mt. Vernon, Hackberry, and Pleasant Hill Schools, all in Sand Creek Township. In 1909 she married Martin ANDERSON, son of James C. and Marie ANDERSON who lived on a farm one mile S. of Shannon City. Martin and Bertha began their married life on a farm three miles southwest of Shannon City.

Sadie did not marry and remained at home with her parents, and devoted her life to their loving care. She was a favorite aunt of nieces and nephews. She died in 1930, two years after the death of her father.

Cressie, who was born in 1888 after the family moved to Arispe farm, married Ralph PITKIN, a brother of Chloe who had married Cressie's brother Rob. Cressie and Ralph lived on farms in the Arispe community until 1926, when they moved to Red Bluff, California. Their four older children, Gladys, Keith, Merle and Clair attended the Arispe School before to Cal. The two younger boys, Gayle and Allen, were not yet of school age when they moved from Arispe.

The ROBERTSON family were members of the United Presbyterian Church and faithfully attended church in Shannon City. In 1919, Ralph and Nancy retired from their farm and moved to a small acreage east of Shannon City. Ralph died there in 1928. His wife Nancy then lived in Shannon City a few years.

In 1933 the ROBERTSON farm south of Arispe reverted back to the ROBERTSON heirs and in 1934 Martin and Bertha ANDERSON purchased it and moved there. Bertha therefore returned to the home where she had lived until she married, and spent the last 24 years of her life there. In that same year Bertha's mother, Nancy, who was in failing health, gave up her home in Shannon City and came to live with Bertha and Martin. Thus, she too returned to her previous home and lived the last two years of her life there. She died in 1935 at the age of 86.

Martin and Bertha had five children, but by the time they moved to the ROBERTSON farm, the three older children, Wayne, Verna and Dorothy had graduated from High School at Shannon City. Wayne had begun to establish himself in farming and in the fall of 1934, he and Helen VANCE of Mount Ayr were married. Verna, who later marrried Ralph COLEMAN in California, was teaching and was home only periodically. Dorothy was at home part time until her marriage to John REYNOLDS in 1942, then they resided south of Shannon City. Vivian completed High School. in Arispe and attended business school in Missouri She married Ernest BURGMAIER in 1942. They made their home northeast of Creston, where they were living when Vivian died in 1968. Marjorie attended Arispe School from grade five through High School and married Kenneth NURNBERG in 1942. They now live in Arispe. Marjorie is the only member of the ROBERTSON-ANDERSON family now residing in the Arispe community.

Martin and Bertha ANDERSON lived on the family farm until Bertha's death Christmas, 1957, at the age of 76 years. Martin remained there through 1958, then retired to a home just south of Shannon City in 1959. He died in 1974, at the age of 90. In 1959, when Martin moved from the farm, son Wayne and wife Helen sold their farm west and north of Tingley and moved to the ROBERTSON-ANDERSON farm, where their last 16 years of farming were spent. Their three children, Anne, Robert and Karen Sue had already completed High School in Mount Ayr, but were home during summer vacations and on other occasions. In 1965 Wayne and Helen purchased the Vern McKEE farm across the road from their farm for additional farming land. Vern McKEE who had been born there was retiring. In 1974, Wayne and Helen sold the ROBERTSON-ANDERSON farm, including the McKEE land, and retired to a home in Creston where they still reside.

So ended a family legacy of three generations, beginning with the purchase of the farm by Ralph ROBERTSON in 1886, and through two more generations, Bertha and Martin ANDERSON, and Wayne and Helen ANDERSON, and ending in 1974, when the farm went into a new family ownership, Harold and Cindi SELIM.

SOURCE: Arispe [Iowa] Centennial: 1887-1987 p. 234.

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, June of 2009