How unusual it is in this day and age, for a man and woman to celebrate their 67th anniversary. It is an event which is very seldom celebrated, and yet in the near future, on next Wednesday August 14, 1912, Mr. and Mrs. John W.B. Roberts of this city will have been married sixty seven years.

In a little cottage on East Bowen Street, this aged couple is quietly spending their declining years, as happy together as they were on that bright August day in 1845 when Reverend John Fast spoke the words that made them one for life.

A Savanna Times Journal reporter called upon them a few days ago and persuaded them to tell some of their experiences in this country. When Savanna was but a small collection of cabins and while the Indians were still roaming through this part of the country.

It was at first rather difficult to get them to speak of the past, but Mr. Roberts, despite the fact that he is past ninety years of age, is a very interesting and intelligent talker and when he once started to tell of..... little sitting room faded away as in a dream and again they were driving on the "prairie schooner" or riding up the broad bosom of the Mississippi, seeking a new home among strangers in a land the possession of which was still disputed by the red man.

Mr. Roberts was born in July, 1822 in Henry County, Kentucky. When a young man he moved to Illinois and settled in Fulton county. Here he met and won Miss Mary Joy, who has since been his helpmate.

Mrs. Roberts was born in Augusta, Maine, on Christmas day in 1825. She spent her girlhood in the east and moved to Illinois with her parents when in her teens. Here she met John Roberts and they were married August 14, 1845.

The wedding took place at the home of the bride's parents, the Reverend John Fast officiating. The wedding was quite a social affair and many guests were in attendence both at the ceremony and at the "infair". The infair is a social function which has since gone out of custom. It was really a party. The weddings in those days always occurred at the home of the bride's parents and upon the following day the groom's parents gave a big party which was called the "infair".

Mr. Roberts stated that as far as he knows now, there is only one other person living who was present at the infair. This is Michael Markley of Mount Carroll.

After one year of married life which they spent in Fulton county, Mr. and Mrs. Roberts started on an overland trip for the Mississippi. Here they sold their team and wagon and came up the river in a boat. Their description of this trip is very beautiful. The river flowed through what was almost a wilderness. What are now beautiful little cities were at the time only small villages. While where the villages of today stand, was then only prairie and trackless woods.

They landed just above here at Sand Prairie. An Indian campfire was still smoldering where they landed, although the red men were no where to be seen, but about two miles across the prairie they saw a house which proved to be the home of Tom Hatfield, the father of Mrs. John A. Robinson of this city.

Mr. Roberts tried to get his wife to stay and watch the things while he went to the house and got a team but she was frightened about the savages and accused him of taking her from her folks to give her to the Indians, so together they went to the house and got a team. They stored their goods with Hatfield and made the journey to Elizabeth on foot, for be it known that at that time there were no raiboads through this part of the country. Mr. Roberts states that he never saw a railroad until after he was married.

They found Elizabeth to be a thriving little mining camp. Here they resided for about four years, Mr. Roberts working in the mines. They then moved from one place to another, following the mines and living at different places throughout Jo Daviess county. Later the husband turned his attention to agriculture and he and Robert McGrath, father of Dr. McGrath of this city, broke many an acre of virgin prairie and put it under cultivation.

Mr. McGrath often stated that John Roberts was the strongest man on the lift that he ever saw, and indeed he must have been very strong in his younger days to be so well preserved as he is today. Tall, now slightly bent with the weight of his ninety years, but still possessing a wonderful memory.

Mr. Roberts has a horrible scar on his left breast about six inches long which was caused by an operation, the story of which is here told on account of the fact it was performed at a time before the use of chloroform or ether was known or used, except in one or two of the largest hospitals in the east, and even then the use was only experimental.

Mr. Roberts had what was diagnosed by the physicians as a cancer and was told that an operation was all that would save his life.

In those days patients were bound and gagged during the operation. Doctor Hoar of Dubuque, who performed this operation, told Mr. Roberts that he would send and get chloroform and administer it if he wished, but the patient refused to take anything at all and also refused to be bound, but sat down in a chair telling them to `cut ahead'.

This they did, and he sat there and watched them cut two pounds of flesh from his breast.

In telling of the ordeal, he said, "It bled quite profusely and I guess my nerve wasn't very strong cause I mighty near fainted once".

Four children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Roberts.... They were Harmon, Elizabeth, William and John. All are dead except William, who resides near Winside, Nebraska.

They have twenty-eight great grandchildren living. Mr. Roberts died later that year (1912), and Mrs. Roberts passed away in 1914.

Submitted by: Hazel Buckwalter Boyle, the daughter of Lillie Roberts Yenney.

***Article Found in the Goodly Heritage & Picture submitted by Lori Gilbert