Obituary - Susan P. Roberts

Tuesday, February 27, 2007
THE JUNEAU EMPIRE

Former Juneau resident Susan Pomeroy Roberts died of heart disease Feb. 8, 2007, in Tucson, Ariz. She was 74.

Born in Oct. 19, 1932 in Dayton, Ohio, she grew up in the suburbs of New York, Chicago and Detroit and graduated from Baldwin High School in Birmingham, Mich., in 1950.

After attending the University of Colorado in Boulder, and traveling in Europe, she married Don Roberts, of Franklin, Mich., in 1953. Don was working as a federal Fish and Wildlife agent in Alaska. They left for Alaska the morning after their wedding, beginning a journey that would span 40 years of marriage and 37 years in the state. The couple lived and raised their four children in many Alaska communities, including Anchorage, Haines, Kodiak, Fairbanks, Juneau, Anchor Point and Homer.

Pomeroy Roberts worked nearly 50 years, primarily as an executive assistant for doctors, lawyers and politicians, including former Alaska Lt. Gov. Lowell Thomas Jr. She lived in Juneau from 1974 to 1977 and again from 1992 to 1994. She was the first female public member of the Alaska Board of Pharmacy and served as its president.

Her family said that she is remembered for her vivid and expansive storytelling; feisty wit and generosity; and love of piano, dolls, martinis, bridge, "New Yorker" magazine, chocolate, watching figure skating, knitting and interior decorating.

She was preceded in death by her husband in 1998; and her youngest child, Catherine Roberts Miller, in 2004.

She is survived by her daughters, Laury Roberts Scandling and her husband, Bruce, and Wendy Skye Hamilton and her husband, Steve, of Juneau; and son, Rob Roberts and his wife, Stephanie, of Aurora, Colo.; eight grandchildren, including Evan and Rachel Scandling, of Juneau; and four great-grandchildren.

Remembrances can be made to the Salvation Army, 439 W. Willoughby Ave., Juneau, AK, 99801, which helped the family after the 1967 Fairbanks flood.

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