Vera was born October 12, 1918 at Jerome, Kansas, to George and Eva Alice Weekly Orten. When she was two years old, the family moved to Grainfield where she attended all her school years, graduating in 1938 from Grainfield High School. (She attended the most recent high school reunion and wore a grass skirt like those all the ladies wore.)


Vera passed away peacefully Monday, June 10, at 1:00 P.M. at the Long Term Care Facility in Quinter, Kansas, at the age of ninety-one and a half.

During her high school days she worked as bookkeeper at the elevator in Grainfield and also at a soda fountain at a station there. She played violin and performed at her graduation and at a Memorial Day service. In athletics she played basketball.


She married Delmar Roberts from rural Gove, Kansas, on August 18, 1938 and lived on their farm east of Gove. She worked alongside as a help mate in everything Delmar undertook. They raised Herefords on their Roberts Hereford Ranch. She typed all the registration papers for the registered Herefords. They also grew crops of wheat, milo and alfalfa. She can be remembered as being on a tractor if needed and cooking meals for everyone who was working there at the time.


They built a new ranch-style home on the property there, but they moved to Quinter in 1952 because Delmar was no longer able to farm due to two heart attacks. They built a house then in Quinter.

Delmar and Vera started the Skogmo's store in Quinter, managed first by his brother, Theo Roberts. When Theo returned to teaching, Delmar and Vera again worked side by side in the store. Later the name of the clothing store was changed to Roberts, the sign still hanging on Main. Their son, Richard, also managed the other store they ran in Hill City for several years. During the time, they traveled to Minneapolis together to the clothing shows. They owned and operated the store over thirty years before retiring. She and Delmar loved the people!

Vera pieced quilts and crocheted afghans in the evenings after working at the store during the day. She made them for all her children and grandchildren. It is just like her to make things that keep them warm, just as her love was so warm to them. She sewed a lot, too. She also was faithful at checking on and caring for her mother, Eva Orten, just two blocks down the same street. She gardened, watered and cut her own lawn for years.

After Delmar's passing in 1993, she kept her residence they had built in Quinter, enjoyed time with her sisters-in-law, Wilma Gillespie and Anna Dohm, as they ate together and sometimes traveled out of town. She and her two remaining siblings, Florence Smith and William L. Orten, traveled to see nephews and nieces together and to Branson. She traveled with Joyce to France and Austria where she visited her brother, Wm. L. Orten, in Salzburg, Austria. Joyce took Vera to the top of the Eiffel Tower and down the Seine River on a "bateau" in France.

Vera celebrated her 90th birthday in 2008 with her children, grandchildren and friends here at the LTCF with her three remaining children, Shirley and Erroll of Hays and Joyce. Richard's widow, Barbara, and his son, Rick and family and Joyce's daughter Lori and husband, John, and two sons were among those attending.

Her church affiliation during the years was with Grainfield Methodist Church which she attended while in school. Then she and Delmar first attended the church in the Prairie View School in the country those early years. She later joined the United Methodist Church in Quinter.

Vera's brother, Wm. L. Orten, and her sister, Florence Smith, both live in the LTCF where they were "under the same roof" with Vera. They are the three remaining of six children of the George and Eva Orten family.

Preceding her passing were her husband, Delmar Roberts; her son, Richard Roberts, a grandson, Gregg Roberts; and three brothers, Merle, Henry, and Wilfred Orten.

Those surviving are as follows: Joyce Roberts Lott of Quinter, Barbara Roberts (widow of Richard) of Hays; Shirley Roberts of Hays, and Erroll and wife, Eileen of Hays; a brother, William Orten of Quinter; a sister, Florence Smith of Quinter; nine grandchildren, Lori Lane, Jill Wells, Rick Roberts, Clint Roberts, Jessica Roberts, Emily Roberts, Sherry Craig, Doug Roberts and Brad Roberts; fourteen great-grandchildren; and three great-great-grandchildren

Services for Vera will be held Saturday, May 15, 2010 at 10:30 AM in the United Methodist Church at Quinter, KS. Visitation is 9:30 AM until time of service on Saturday.

Memorials are suggested to the Gove County Medical Center LTC or the United Methodist Church and can be sent in care of Schmitt Funeral Home, 901 S Main, Quinter, KS 67752.