The Three Reubens

For the last four years, I have been doing extensive researching and writing about these men, who had enormous influence not only on my and the rest of our family, but also on their friends and their respective communities. I have also been exploring the lives about other family members who had similarly large impacts —  specifically, my maternal great-grandfather Peter Gibson Thomson (for whom I am named) and my paternal grandmother Hope Thomson Robertson (Peter Thomson’s daughter, who married Reuben Robertson, Sr.).

The pieces I have written about Peter Thomson, Reuben Robertson, Sr. and his wife, Hope and Reuben Robertson, Jr. were initially designed to be just for the more recent generations of the Thomson and Robertson families who did not know these larger-than-life people as a way of preserving their memories. However, some of my articles have reached broader audiences. Versions of my pieces about Peter Thomson and Reuben Robertson, Sr. have been published in The Mountaineer, a newspaper in Waynesville, North Carolina – https://www.themountaineer.com/. These two men had an enormous impact on the region surrounding that town because of the huge paper mill Peter Thomson built in the neighboring town of Canton, which my grandfather ran for decades. They are still remembered with fondness by the generations of people who worked in the mill over decades under Thomson-Robertson stewardship, which included not only providing good jobs at reasonable wages, but also in making available numerous amenities for the people of the region.

Last summer, during a family reunion I organized near Canton, I discovered that my grandfather is still remembered with something approaching reverence because of his big personality and his huge impact on the region, even though he died more than 50 years ago. There are such fond memories of the family that the heads of the Canton library and of the historical museum asked me to come to a meeting to talk about my grandfather and my father. More than 50 people turned out. That experience, along with the extensive research I have done about my grandfather convinced me that a formal biography about him should be written. To that end, other family members and I have engaged a North Carolina historian to write the biography, and he is well under way in his research. That work and this website are being done under the auspices of a company my brother George, our cousin Elizabeth Shanblin, and I have established for exploring and writing about our family history, known as Three Reubens Publishing Co., LLC.

This home page includes profiles of the three Reuben Buck Robertsons that were written by my brother Reuben. They are part of the extensive genealogical work Reuben put together with some other relatives about our Robertson heritage. That work, entitled Our Robertsons, has recently been published by Reuben’s widow Victoria and is available on Amazon. In the near future, a separate website will be created containing the entirety of Our Robertsons. The profiles of the three Reuben Robertsons are included here with the permission of Victoria Robertson.

In addition to the pieces about the three Reuben Robertsons written by my brother, this initial version of ThreeReubens.com includes profiles I have written about my grandfather and my grandmother, Reuben and Hope Robertson, my father Reuben Robertson, Jr., and my great-grandfather Peter G. Thomson. Those can be found in the tab entitled Peter’s PDFs in the top menu. There is also a piece there about a unique photo my father obtained of Winston Churchill and General Eisenhower shortly before D-Day, on which he obtained the autograph of each. In the future, I will be adding articles about other family members.