Newton Roberts

ROBERTS, GOSSETT

Posted By: Deb barker (email)
Date: 11/6/2005 at 21:52:09

Pg 111
NEWTON W ROBERTS- Ottumwa takes great pride in the career of Newton W Roberts, who combines the practice of law with that of painting, and has achieved notable success in both fields. The son of a distinguished attorney and judge, Mr Roberts has engaged in the practice of law in Ottumwa since 1912, and is one of the best-known and most highly respected lawyers in his section of Iowa. Keenly interested in art from boyhood, Mr Roberts began to paint in his leisure time in the 30’s and in the past 10 years has exhibited many of his paintings at the Six-State Exhibition and wlsewhere, with increasing renown. One of his paintings was bought, in 1946, by the Joslyn Memorial Museum at Omaha, Nebraska, for it permanent collection.
Newton W Roberts was born in Hancock, Indian, July 6, 1881, the son of Milton A and Charlotte Hannah (Gossett) Roberts. His father, District Judge Milton A Roberts, was born March 23, 1854, and died June 17, 1938, at the age of 84. Judge Roberts was a native of Indiana. He graduated from the law school of the University of Michigan in 1884, after which he began the practice of law in Ottumwa, and remained here for the balance of his life, becoming one of the city’s outstanding citizens. He served on the bench as district judge from 1895 to 1911. Resigning in 1911, he went back to private practice for himself and his 2 sons, Newton W Roberts and Frank T Roberts, who died in December, 1927. Judge Roberts and his sons practiced under the firm name of Roberts & Roberts, and this name was retained by Newton W Roberts in his law practice at the present time. In 1899, in co-operation with Rev U B Smith, a Methodist Minister, Judge Roberts organized the American Home Finding Association, the oldest organization of its kind in the state of Iowa, and he was president of this organization from that time until his death. He was a member of the board of directors of the Haw Hardware Company, and was president of the Iowa Success school of Ottumwa, a business school in which many men and women of this section of Iowa have received commercial training. Fraternally Judge Roberts was affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He was a Republican, and his religious ties were with the Methodist Episcopal Church, in which he served for many years as a member of the board of Trustees. Judge Roberts married Charlotte Hannah Gossett, a native of Indiana, who was born January 30, 1855, and died March 28, 1942.
Newton W Roberts attended the Ottumwa public schools, graduating from the Ottumwa High School. He wanted to be an artist, but his father urged that he study law. For a time he was undecided, and during that period he toured the South, Southwest, and Mexico, drawing pictures and traveling often in a railway box car. In Des Moines, he took a business course at the Capital City Commercial College, from which he graduated in 1905. For the next 7 years he was a court reporter, thus gaining a thorough grounding in the practical application of law in the courts. Meantime he was continuing his studies. He graduated from Baker University in Baldwin, Kansas, in 1910, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and then took the degree of Master of Arts at Iowa Wesleyan College at Mount Pleasant and took courses in law and the social sciences at Columbia University in New York City. In 1912 he was admitted to the Iowa State Bar and became associated with his father in the firm of Roberts & Roberts. He has practiced in Ottumwa ever since.
Mr Roberts served a s county attorney of Wapello County for the 2 terms of 1918-19 and 1920-21, and again, in 1940, he served for a time as county attorney, being appointed to fill an expired tern. He is a member of the Wapello County Bar Association and the Iowa State Bar Association. He served for several years on the board for Sunny Slope Sanitarium of Ottumwa, and was also for several years a member of the official board of the Salvation Army. For 8 years he served too on the board of the American Home Finding Association, which, as mentioned above, was founded by his father. Mr Roberts is an active member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and serves on its official board. He belongs to the High Twelve Club, the Ottumwa Country Club, the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and Delta Tau Delta college fraternity. In his political affiliation Mr Roberts is a Republican.
His great hobby and leisure-time activity is oil painting. So professional are his achievements in this field, however, that art lovers and art critics “would rather think of him as an artist with a law practice,” Since his boyhood Mr Roberts has been drawing and painting occasionally for his own enjoyment. In 1930, when his daughter Betty began taking painting lessons for the late Helen Brown Bonnifield of Ottumwa, Mr Roberts naturally took a great interest and found him learning much and eager to spend more time painting. He spent his summer vacation at the Stone City art colony, under the direction of Grant Wood, buying “one of the now almost legendary ice wagons in which the colonist lived.” Then he rented a 2nd story room over a printing shop across from his law office and began to use it as a studio. He submitted a group of 3 paintings to the Six-State Exhibition, and when the group was accepted, even his father, who had never been favorable to the idea of his son’s being an artist, was impressed. Vol III