We remember Kitty Roberts

Kitty as a child with her two brothers, Richard and John Wade, and more recently next to an original island telephone switchboard in the Museum collection. Kitty once worked at this switchboard when it was in the Bayview/San Juan Hotel lobby (the building is now Friday Harbor’s Windermere Real Estate office)

Here’s the month­ly His­to­ry Col­umn for Decem­ber from San Juan His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety and Museum…

Local his­to­ry is writ­ten one event, one day, one per­son at a time. Kit­ty Roberts was one of those peo­ple who con­tributed to island his­to­ry with her life. She gra­cious­ly shared island his­to­ry, sup­port­ed it, and inspired many to care about it. She was born in the month of Decem­ber and, as many will recall, passed away in Decem­ber, on Christ­mas Day last year.

Kit­ty was a fourth gen­er­a­tion islander, and a direct link to two of San Juan Island’s icon­ic pio­neers, Stephen and Lucin­da Boyce. For over twen­ty years, Kit­ty was also a ded­i­cat­ed vol­un­teer for the San Juan His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety and Muse­um. She was a board mem­ber, arti­fact con­sul­tant, event plan­ner, fam­i­ly his­to­ry expert, and charm­ing docent. She gave of her heart and, by exam­ple, invit­ed oth­ers to do the same. Kit­ty was equal parts grace and humor. It’s no won­der vol­un­teers would ask “When is Kit­ty com­ing in?” because they want­ed to sign up for the time she chose.

All his­to­ry is per­son­al. Some of it is just more per­son­al than oth­ers. So when Decem­ber comes, we think of Kit­ty. As we often do.

You can support the San Juan Update by doing business with our loyal advertisers, and by making a one-time contribution or a recurring donation.