Frank Livezey Roberts

Background

Roberts was born in Boise, Idaho, in 1915 to Walter Scott and Mary Livezey Roberts.

Education

University of Wisconsin–Madison. Stanford University.

Career

A Democrat, Roberts served in both houses of the Oregon Legislative Assembly. He served two terms in the Oregon House of Representatives and most of five terms in the Oregon Senate before resigning due to poor health. Roberts was married three times, including to Barbara Roberts, who was the first woman to serve as Governor of Oregon, and to Betty Roberts, who was the first woman to serve as a justice on the Oregon Supreme Court.

He received a bachelor"s degree from Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon in 1938.

Later that year, he earned a master"s degree from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In 1946, he was hired as a speech professor at Vanport College (later renamed Portland State University).

He earned a doctorate from Stanford University in 1954. In 1960, Roberts was elected chairman of the Multnomah County Democratic Party.

He ran unsuccessfully for the Oregon State Senate in 1962, but was successful in his second attempt at elective office, winning a seat in the Oregon House of Representatives in 1966.

He was re-elected to a second term, but in 1970, redistricting forced him to run in another district and he lost in the Democratic primary. Roberts again unsuccessfully sought election to the Oregon House in 1972, but when an open Senate seat was available in 1974, he was elected to the first of six four-year terms representing District 4 in Portland. At the time of his retirement in 1993, Roberts was the longest-serving Oregon legislator.

As a legislator, Roberts served on the Ways and Means Committee.

He worked to expand social service programs for the poor, disabled, and elderly, expanding Head Start Programs to more children, and funding more medical care programs, such as prenatal care, to the poor. She was elected to the Oregon House of Representatives in 1964, and was later elected to the Oregon State Senate in 1969.

In 1974, she ran unsuccessfully for both Governor of Oregon and as a replacement candidate for United States. Senate. Betty later resigned from the Oregon Senate when she was appointed as a judge on the Oregon Court of Appeals, and later was the first woman to serve on the Oregon Supreme Court.

Frank and Mary Wendy were the first, and to date, only, father-daughter team to serve simultaneously in the Oregon Legislative Assembly.

In 1971, Roberts met Barbara Hughey Sanders, a single mother with an autistic son, who was lobbying for the right of disabled students to attend public schools. Barbara Roberts was elected to the Oregon House of Representatives in 1980, Oregon Secretary of State in 1984 and 1988, and became Oregon"s 34th governor in 1990. Roberts had a heart attack in 1984, and was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1987.

Radiation treatment for his cancer destroyed the nerves in his legs and left him unable to walk.

He died at Mahonia Hall, Oregon"s governor"s residence, on October 31.

Membership

In 1993, with his cancer spread to his lungs, Roberts, then the longest-serving member of the Oregon Legislative Assembly, resigned from the Oregon Senate on September 1.

Connections

teacher:

Betty Cantrell Rice