Dede Robertson, Wife of Evangelist Pat, Dies at 94

[A Friend]

https://news.yahoo.com/dede-robertson-wife-religious-broadcaster-0103027
84.html


Dede Robertson, wife of religious broadcaster, dies at 94

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — Dede Robertson, the wife of religious broadcaster
Pat Robertson and a founding board member of the Christian Broadcasting
Network, died Tuesday at her home in Virginia Beach, the network said
in a statement.

Robertson was 94. The statement did not provide her cause of death.

Robertson became a born-again Christian several months after her
husband found his faith. The couple, who met at Yale University in
1952, embarked on a journey that included living in a roach-infested
commune in New York before Pat Robertson bought a tiny television
station in Virginia that would become the Christian Broadcasting
Network.

He later ran for president of the United States in 1988, with his wife
campaigning by his side.

"Mom was the glue that held the Robertson family together," said Gordon
Robertson, one of her four children, and the president and CEO of CBN.
"She was always working behind the scenes. If it weren't for Mom, there
wouldn't be a CBN."

Adelia "Dede" Elmer was born in Columbus, Ohio, to middle-class
Catholic Republicans. She got her bachelor's degree from Ohio State and
a master's in nursing from Yale.

Robertson's future husband was the son of a Southern Baptist,
Democratic U.S. senator. Eighteen months after meeting, they ran off to
be married by a justice of the peace, knowing that neither family would
approve.

Robertson's husband was interested in politics until he found religion,
she told The Associated Press in 1987. He stunned her by pouring out
their liquor, tearing a nude print off the wall and declaring he had
found the Lord.

They moved into the commune in Bedford-Stuyvesant because Robertson
said God had told him to sell all his possessions and minister to the
poor. Robertson told The AP she was tempted to go back to Ohio, "but I
realized that was not what the Lord would have me do ... I had promised
to stay, so I did."

Pat Robertson later heard God tell him to buy the small TV station in
Portsmouth, Virginia, which would become a global religious
broadcasting network. He ran the network's flagship program, the "700
Club," for half a century before stepping down last fall.

In her autobiography, Robertson recalled bridling at staying at home
and her husband's refusal to help around the house.

"I was a Northerner, and Northern men just generally help around the
house a little more," she said. "I noticed the further south we moved,
the less he did."

Her attitude changed after she had her own born-again experience at a
church service, she told The AP. "I began to see how important what he
was doing really was."

Robertson said that women should not work outside the home while their
children are young unless they must. She reared her kids and worked as
a nursing professor after they went to school.

She had represented the U.S. on the Inter-American Commission of Women,
which was established to ensure recognition of women's human rights.
She also served on the board of Regent University, which her husband
founded.

Pat Robertson said in a statement that his wife "was a woman of great
faith, a champion of the gospel, and a remarkable servant of Christ who
has left an indelible print on all that she set her hand to during her
extraordinary life."

[Lenona]

> https://news.yahoo.com/dede-robertson-wife-religious-broadcaster-0103027
> 84.html

> In her autobiography, Robertson recalled bridling at staying at home
> and her husband's refusal to help around the house.
>
> "I was a Northerner, and Northern men just generally help around the
> house a little more," she said. "I noticed the further south we moved,
> the less he did."

Honestly.

Would any good parent allow the older child to bribe (or force) the younger
child to do all the housework just because the older child "hates it more" than
the younger? Why should any child get away with doing that? (Hint: we ALL
have unpaid work to do, so we all need to learn to accept it. Even billionaires
have to have regular meetings with their employees.)

Would any teacher tolerate students who were trying to con classmates into
doing their schoolwork? (And why would the classmates tolerate that, after a while?)

Would any employer even WANT to have employees who were always trying
to dump their work on their co-workers?

What's the difference? Why does anyone think a wife should have less leisure
time than a husband?

(It is NOT fanatical to expect a family to dust and vacuum every room at least
twice a month - failing to do that is how vermin and disease take over a household.
Even without small children, cooking and cleaning can easily take 20 hours a
week. Besides, it takes just one plastic bag or glossy magazine on the floor to result
in a lawsuit after a guest breaks a leg.)

Not that some women couldn't be doing better when it comes to "men's work,"
of course. For example, if parents make their sons start paying rent at a certain
age - and Move Out by a certain age - daughters need to do the same and not act
as though they're entitled to be supported in the manner to which they're
accustomed - hint, hint.

It reminds me of the Last Emperor, Pu Yi. Until about age 40 (after WWII) he'd
never tied his own shoes, brushed his own teeth, or turned off a faucet. Prison
changed all that - but for his last 20 years or so, he still struggled with remembering
to do his own chores. From Edward Behr's biography:

"Gaol was like school for him. All his life, until 1945, everyone around him had
convinced him he was special, almost divine. Because of this, his attitude towards
others had never been normal. Only in Fushun did he become aware of people as people."

I know a very well-educated man (born in 1968) who, not many years ago, said that
a man shouldn't have to do his own housework when there's a woman around. (Somehow,
I doubt that he would argue that a woman shouldn't have to earn her own living when
her next-door neighbor is a man.) I told him about Pu Yi's utter incompetence and asked,
in effect, "is that really what you aspire to?" At least he didn't say yes - but I no longer
remember what he DID say. I told him in an email that since he'll likely find himself asking
some friend of his for free co-housing, he should offer to do ALL the housework, at least.
When you can't pay rent, that's only fair. (Right now, he's homeless.)