Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings April 2014, Volume 27, Number 2 | Page 92

Book Review

Selected Roberts Papers from
Seven Generations by Charles
Stewart Roberts, MD
Spartanburg, SC: The Reprint
Company, 2013.
Hardback, $42.95; Paperback,
$32.95; 528 pp.
Reviewed by F. David Winter Jr., MD

his treatise is an ambitious endeavor to
report on seven consecutive generations
of accomplished men in the
Roberts family. Th e last of
the lineage, who authored
the book, began the project with “my two sons in mind.”
There are seven chapters, one from each of the seven generations of the family. There is much to write about among the
Roberts men:

T

No man lived a life free of difficulty and even tragedy; some
experienced poverty, loss of fortune or favor, lives cut short, . . .
deaths, divorce, . . . goals unachieved, and promises unfulfilled. . . .
[The book is] balanced, however, by a respectable record of
accomplishment and fortitude.

Chapter 1 discusses John Roberts Sr., born in 1764 in
the state of Virginia on a farm previously occupied by the
Cherokee Indians. His ancestors were thought to have come
from Kent, England. He would later reside in South Carolina, Georgia, and Mississippi. Mr. Roberts Sr. served in the
war of 1781 but not for long and was denied a pension due to
the brevity of his service. He and his wife were of the Baptist
denomination, but he was once cited for nonattendance,
a feat worthy of publication in those days. Nonetheless, a
later genealogist would label him “the keystone American
ancestor.”
Chapter 2 chronicles James Roberts, son of the aforementioned John Roberts Sr., who rose to become a judge in Georgia.
He was not formally schooled in the law but earned his title after
serving 16 years in the courtroom. James had 12 children. He
himself was a staunch unionist, though five of his sons served
in the Confederate army. His youngest would later adopt his
father’s ideals and switch to the loyalist forces.
George Washington Roberts, named after America’s first
president, is discussed in chapter 3. He was the first son of
James Roberts. Educated in the legal profession and admitted
to the bar at age 22, he expired at age 35 of “consumption.”
166

During his abbreviated adult life as a slave owner, he was a vocal secessionist. In a resolution of his county in Mississippi, he
wrote that the election of Abraham Lincoln “is a violation of the
constitution in spirit . . . and therefore we are resolved to resist
Lincoln.” In the great American spirit, criticism of presidents
continues to this day.
James William Roberts, the topic of chapter 4 and son of
George Washington Roberts, had a longer and more noteworthy life. Left fatherless at age 10, the young man supported his
mother and two younger siblings by selling apples. A Georgian
businessman would take a shine to him and foster his education
at Emory College. This Roberts would graduate first in his class
and go on to become a Methodist minister described as “intelligent and literary” yet “forceful and controversial.” Later in
his career he became president of Wesleyan College in Macon.
He was known for championing several controversial issues of
the day:
• “A nation cannot exist without a conscience, and that it
can have no conscience without recognized standards of
morality and religion.”
• “Man is a religious being, and the religious element within
him must and will have either religion or anarchy.”
• “Foreign immigration, on the whole, introduces demoralizing agencies among us. . . . Anarchists, nihilists, all sorts—
they come. . . . It seems to me that in this matter the time
has come for restriction and selection.”
• “Liquor . . . enslaves, corrupts and damns the whole
man.”
• “I am opposed to woman’s suffrage.” If women “will confine
themselves to their divinely appointed sphere, their children
will be better trained and their homes will be happier.”
His tombstone carries the inscription, “Preacher, Teacher,
Man.”
Stewart R. Roberts was the son of the aforementioned
preacher-teacher-man, an internist and the first heart specialist
in Georgia. He was a well-respected academician and served as
president of the Southern Medical Association and the American Heart Association. He was said to have “cured” an ailing
pastor with the following instructions:
1. Eat less bread, no butter, no gravy, no rice, no desserts,
except fruit.
2. Have all the right fun that you can. Go fishing. Go walking
in the woods, go on picnics with your wife. Quit trying to
keep up. Assert what you already have in your mind. You
know more than St. Peter did.
3. The rest of the year do just as little reading and mental work
as you can. Take more to rides, laughing, and walks.
4. See how much you can get out of pastoral visiting.
5. Rest about one hour after lunch.
Proc (Bayl Univ Med Cent) 2014;27(2):166–167