All About Delmer Roberts

This post turned out much longer than I planned. Every time I thought I was almost done, I’d find more details and more photos. I realize not everyone is as big a Jane Roberts nerd as I am, so I’m adding a summary at the beginning of the post and you can get the gist of what’s in it without having to read the whole darned thing.

Also, rather than making you wait until the end, I’ll share something right now that I mentioned in a prior post: Jane and Rob were actually related! To be precise, eighth cousins twice removed. And Jane was her own cousin!  I’m sure they had no idea. Here is an email from Barry Noonan (Thank you Barry!) sharing some genealogy research he had done on Jane and Rob’s families. Click on the image to enlarge it enough to read. There are more images and photos below in the “full” post—you might enjoy seeing those. 🙂

OK, here we go. Long story shorter:

1901: Delmar’s grandfather Sidney Hubbell inherited a substantial amount of money from a bachelor uncle.

1905: Delmar Hubbell Roberts was born.

1909: Sidney died, two residences (Champlain and Saratoga Springs) and the bulk of the inheritance went into a trust for his wife and three daughters. One of the daughters was Delmer’s mother, Mattie. Del was four at the time.

1912: Mattie and Del’s father Stanley Roberts were divorced in 1912, and so it was just Del and Mattie for a while. Del was 7 at the time.

Del and Mattie would split their year living in Champlain and Saratoga Springs, and Del went to schools in both districts. Del was very active in school drama, acting, singing, reciting in various plays. He also belonged to a boys’ club that put on shows as fundraisers. He also belonged to the Order of DeMolay, a youth group related to the Masons.

1919-1923: Del met Jane’s mother Marie in Saratoga Springs’ public high school some time during this period.

1923: After graduation, Del and Mattie moved to California so he could to attend Pasadena Military School for a couple of years, I think to learn a trade.

As a young adult, he tended to get a lot of speeding tickets and was in several accidents, usually his own doing.

1928: Del and Marie were married. Jane came along in 1929. Marie and Del moved around a bit for employment reasons. Del worked at an aircraft manufacturing plant in Detroit when they first married, then later the Tampa/St Pete area. Jane lived in Florida as a small child (1932) and according to Jane she came back to New York with a thick southern accent that she “had to lose” when she started school.

1933: Del and Marie separated around 1933 and then divorced. Del invested in real estate in California and Florida, built homes, worked at times. Del paid child support for a while, then a bulk settlement. He continued to send money occasionally over the years.

1935: Del married Maxine Nutting.

1950: Del and Maxine visited with Marie, Jane and Walt Zeh in Saratoga Springs. This is what prompted the famous motorcycle road trip for Jane and Walt to visit Del and Maxine in California.

1954: Maxine died in Santa Monica.

1959: Del marries Midge Barrett. They buy a house in Florida and settle down.

1971: Del died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Daytona on November 16, 1971 at the age of 66.

1972: Marie died in 1972 at the age of 65.

* * * * *

So now… the whole enchilada:

Mary spent a heroic amount of time reading through old newspaper articles from New York publications, Los Angeles Times and even found a Pasadena Military Academy brochure. It’s from the almost 600 articles she had scanned, plus some other sources, that I’ve been able to piece together more information about Jane’s father, Delmer Roberts.

The oldest article, March 2, 1901, mentions Sidney Hubbell (1833-1909), maternal grandfather of Del, inheriting at the age of 60 a considerable fortune from a bachelor uncle.

Sidney, his wife Isabella Maxwell Hubbell (1855-1923) and their three daughters Maude, Mattie and Dorothy were living in Champlain, NY. In October of 1901, Sidney bought a summer home in Saratoga Springs.

Del’s parents Stanley Roberts (1876-1932) and Martha “Mattie” Katherine Hubble of Champlain, NY (1884-1952?) were married in 1904. Delmer, their only child, was born on December 12, 1905. Only a few weeks prior, there had been a birth announcement that Marie, Jane’s mother, was born in Saratoga Springs on November 3, 1905 to Joseph and Minnie Burdo.

When Del’s grandfather Sidney died in 1909, the two homes and the bulk of his estate were left in a trust to his wife, their three daughters and their descendants.

On February 7, 1912 The Albany Evening Journal reported that Mattie had divorced Stanley. Now it was just Mattie and Delmer, age 7. They were very close and devoted to each other. Years later, when Del was an adult, Mattie remarried. Twice.

In elementary school and beyond, Del performed in numerous plays. He acted, sang, recited poetry and also performed in a boys’ club fundraiser for the Red Cross. A February 1923 Saratogian article listed Del as a performer in the chorus of a theater production light opera. At this point he would have been 18, five years before he would marry Jane’s mother, Marie Burdo. Del was also a member of Boys’ Big Barn Club that presented a three act show in 1918 in which Del acted, sang and recited a poem. He was also the “originator and general manager.”

Del and Marie met in Saratoga’s public high school. He would attend the public high school in Saratoga in the fall, and then he and Mattie would go to Florida after Christmas and he would attend school for the rest of the school year.

In September 1923, Mattie closed up her house for the winter and drove out to Pasadena, CA with Delmer. He was entering the Pasadena Military Academy, a tuition-based Christian 5-12 grade school, although at this point Del had graduated high school. The academy also offered special courses in business training, aeronautics, wireless telegraphy, horsemanship, music and manual training. Del attended 1923 and 1924.

On March 1, 1928 Del and Marie were married at St. Clement’s Roman Catholic Church.  After a honeymoon in Washington DC, they traveled to Detroit where Del was working at Stinson Aircraft Manufacturing Company, no doubt using whatever skills he learned at Pasadena Military.

Jane was born May 8, 1929 in Albany NY at 11:30 pm. She weighed 5-1/4 pounds. There’s a December 24, 1932 article stating that Marie, Mattie and Del filed absentee votes because they were in Tampa, where Delmer was working at the time. A 1933 US City Directory shows Delmer and Marie living at 3834 Third Ave N in St Petersburg FL. Jane did note in a manuscript that she “learned to speak” in Florida, returning to Saratoga with a “thick Southern accent” that she lost in kindergarten when her classmates joked about it.

I’m not certain when Del and Marie were separated, probably around 1933. Jane’s comment on her parents’ mismatch: “Father was a wanderer. Even in those days, with all the money, he was somehow… slack… before it was the way to be. He didn’t care for pretense or social values. He loved boating and had a yacht. Mother wanted to collect good silver and be the mistress of a permanent household. It’s astonishing to think that she ever believed he’d really settle down in a normal community with a wife and child.” After that, Marie and Jane moved in with Marie’s parents, Joseph and Marie Burdo, in the duplex at 92 Middle Avenue where Jane spent her childhood.

I was pleased to discover that Del sent Marie monthly child support. Later, Marie took a cash settlement. Del also sent money occasionally, cards on holidays and letters once or twice a year up until his death.

Del mostly lived off his trust but did also work at times. He built and owned several houses in Santa Monica and was “highly gifted as a decorator” per Jane. He owned acres in Cape Canaveral, which he sold before it became worth millions.

Del married Maxine Nutting (1912-1951) of Ballston Spa, NY in October 1935. They honeymooned in Florida, New Orleans, Texas and California on their way to San Diego, CA where Del had taken a job.

According to a letter written by Walt Zeh, Jane’s first husband, Del and Maxine suddenly appeared at Jane and Marie’s home in early 1950, where Jane had her “first view of a father she never really had known.” It was what prompted Walt and Jane’s motorcycle trip to California to visit her father. Jane and Walt visited again in 1952.

Maxine died in April 1954 in Santa Monica. In 1958 and 1959 Del visited with Jane, Rob and Marie in Saratoga Springs, and Rob and Jane would visit Del over the years as well.

In 1959 Del married Midge Barrett in Florida. He and Midge bought a house in Ormond Beach and more or less settled down.

Del died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Daytona on November 16, 1971 at the age of 66. Marie died in 1972 at the age of 65.

For the “rest of the story”… Seth talks about Del’s after-death experiences, relationships and past lives in The Personal Sessions Book 1, session 597.

This is from The “Unknown” Reality Volume 2 Appendix 26: (For Session 734):

[Rob:] “…Jane’s father, Delmer, died without forewarning on . . . Tuesday, November 16; Jane came through with Sumari in class one week later, on November 23; and the next night, in the 598th session, Seth discussed Sumari for the first time.

(Part of my surprise stemmed from what I’d taken to be my knowledge of Jane’s relationship with her father. Her parents had divorced when she was two years old, and since her mother did not remarry Jane grew up without a father. Jane and “Del” met again, briefly, when she became 21 years old in 1950. After Jane and I married a few years later we occasionally visited her father in various parts of the country — but still, we hadn’t seen him for several years before his death. Yet now it seemed that even beneath that scattered performance Jane’s psyche had felt stronger ties of some kind — at least with Del, if not with her mother — than either of us had suspected; that at least some part of her had sensed a sort of biological or creature loss upon the death of a blood relative. I’d never heard her express such attachments or feelings. Even now she could only link the release of her very creative Sumari attributes, the singing poetry, and prose [as embodied in her novel, Oversoul Seven, for instance], with Seth’s reference to psychic families as well as physical ones….)”

If you’ve made it this far, congratulations, you’re a Jane nerd too!

Thanks for your time! Deb