Isabel Roberts - Childhood

Childhood

Isabel D. Roberts was born in Mexico, Missouri, the younger of two surviving daughters of James H. and Mary Harris Roberts. James was a mechanic and inventor born in Utica, New York; Mary, a homemaker and a native of Prince Edward Island. They had been married in 1867 in New York state. They lived for a time in Missouri, where Roberts and her sister Charlotte were both born. Leaving Missouri, the Roberts family moved several more times, including to Providence, Rhode Island. They eventually settled in South Bend, Indiana, where James H. Roberts became Deputy Director of Inspections for the State of Indiana. They were active members of the First Presbyterian Church of South Bend and social and civic groups through which they became friends of Laura Caskey Bowsher (later, DeRhodes). This friendship eventually led to Roberts' introducing Laura to Frank Lloyd Wright and Laura's commissioning from Wright's studio the K. C. DeRhodes House.