The Chronicle-star combined with the Moss Point advertiser., 1946-06-21
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81 N I!El'AI!L!,!lllE

and thus joined two OF the Old
est families of Wade and Hur-
ley. Hrs. Roberts is eleven years
his junior and is still very active
in spite of their IL grandchildren
and six great grandchildren.
In his youth, Uncle Gus was a
timber man, as was just about
every other able bodied man in
the county who was not a fisher
man, and has owned two turpen-
tine stills and was in the saw
mill business off and on for half
a century. He moved to Orange
Grove As years ago and started
a sawmill with Joe Walters and
has lived there ever since.
We don't mean to paint Uncle
Gus as a sanity character, even
though we like him, for he loved
a political or physical scrap as
well as the next one in those
harder days when voters some
times had TO be convinced with
the bare knuckles of the candidate
or his hackers rather than being
bombarded into submission by
oratory and a paper barrage of
platforms and handbills.
Still, Uncle Gus has been iden-
titled with almost every progress.
sive movement in Orange Grove
and the county in the last half
century. He was president of the
board of supervisors when the
road over the dump was PLAN
ned between Gautier and Pascal
goula, about one of the most i'm.
portant~things that ever happened
to this county. !
It is interesting to know that
the recognized engineers Of that
day said this stretch of road
could not be constructed, but
Uncle Gus and his associates were
certain that it could-and must
-be built. Facts bore them out
and even though the cost of
maintenance has been tremendous,
no one a doubt the wisdom of
that move. This stretch was the
missing link" in the Old Span
ish Trail, and its construction
tied ~Pascagoula in on the Gulf
Coast route through Louisiana,
Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.
Prior to that time, Jackson
county was cut off from most of
the rest of Mississippi and Pas
cagoula and Moss Point from the
west side of their own county,
except for the river traffic up
and down the Pascagoula, Johns
Bayou, and Bluff Greek.
Uncle Gus and his wife have
three, living children, Richard
Nollie Roberts of Orange Grove,
Mrs. Eula Mae Jackson and Mrs.
Lola Dickens of Kreole. The
children, and of course their
children and grand children, are
related to half the people in the
county by virtue of the wide con-
nections of their parents.
Mrs, Roberts is the daughter of
the late Jasper Johnson of Wade,
and her brothers Hooker, Thomas
E. Cap, Brooks, Charles, and
Gordon Johnson still live near
each other there, as well as a sis
ter, Mrs. Tom Baria. Uncle
Gus living brothers and sisters
are jerome, Orange. Grove; P. A.
(Bud). East Moss Point: Mrs. Ella
Woodman, and Mrs. Addy Rob
erts, Vancleave, and Mrs. Anne
Garter Of Kreole.
Just how far the connection
goes indirectly is more than We
car say. although we clio know
that it includes us since
great, great grandfather, James,
was a brother to Uncle Gus
grandfather, Tom. If your pee-
Pile were, old residents here,
chances r you have some fam
lily connection, too, but we are
not prepared to say just how yol
are related.
Uncle Gus was on the board
of trustees at the time the
Orange Lake school was built