Remembering Pearl Harbor

Dr. Katherine Roberts

Among the Kentuckians in Hawaii the day of the attack on Pearl Harbor was 1925 University of Kentucky graduate Dr. Katherine Roberts.  Her father, Professor George Roberts, was an agronomist with the UK College of Agriculture.

While at UK Roberts studied Romance Languages but her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Iowa were in Child Psychology.  In 1941 Dr. Roberts had taken a leave of absence from the Merrill-Palmer School in Detroit, Michigan for a one year special assignment in Hawaii.  She worked with the University of Hawaii to prepare teachers in Hawaii to improve their skills in working with students of the many nationalities enrolled in Hawaii's public schools.

Roberts recalled that following the attack all schools on the islands were closed until the following February 2.  Also, everyone on the islands were required to be fingerprinted and inoculated for smallpox and typhoid.  All nonessential civilian employees were asked to leave the islands and gas masks were issued to those who remained.  Roberts returned to Detroit the following September.