Did other members of the Roberts family die young?

Family Health Issues

In an article of November 7, 1914 of the Indianapolis Star, the author states that during the building of her first home, Joel had a "serious disease that left her practically an invalid" and she had to be carried to the building site of her first building endeavor.
Joel Ninde died in 1916 of a stroke at the age of forty-two. This leads to questions about the genetic background of family health and mortality. Did other family members suffer the same fate? Although the average lifespan in 1916 was circa fifty-five years of age, Palmer Clarkston Hamilton reports that most of the members in his branch of the family lived into their nineties. “My grandfather died six months short of a hundred and Aunt Laura was in her late eighties and Uncle Hal was in his nineties. My great-grandfather was ninety-three. Dr. Willis Roberts died during the yellow fever epidemic at the age of 74.” An obituary recently discovered in the New York Times published January 7th 2002 revealed another Roberts descendant, Joel Hunter Jr. of Delray Beach, Florida (b.1906), died in his sleep at the age of ninety-five after a long illness. Elizabeth Hunter Morrill (b. 1913, sister of Joel Hunter, Jr. lived to be eight-seven years old dying in her sleep also. Mr. Hunter and Elizabeth Hunter Morrill were descendants of Laura D. Roberts, sister of Willis Roberts.[i] From the limited information gathered, longevity seemed to run in the Roberts family. There is little information concerning the health of other branches of the family.
[i] Descendants of Laura Roberts Hunter b. October 1841. First Generation: Laura married Joseph T. Hunter of North Carolina. After Joseph’s death, Laura moved with three children to Atlanta, where her younger sister Bessie had moved about 1895. Laura’s children were *Joel, Frank Ross, Carrie B., John Punch, Bessie. Second Generation *Joel Roberts Hunter (b. September 1867) in Alabama married Lethe B. (b. Dec 1874) in Alabama). In 1900 the Hunters lived in Baltimore, MD: by 1910 in Atlanta, Georgia. Mr. Hunter held the first CPA certificate in the state of Georgia; wrote a seminal book on accounting, and was considered a pioneer in the field. Mr. Joel Roberts Hunter, Jr. was president and chief executive office of Crucible Steel Company from 1954 until his retirement in 1997 Joel Hunter and Letha B’s children were Lethe, *Joel, William T. and *Elizabeth. Isbell records, 910 Government Street, Mobile, Alabama.http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9COCEOD8123Bf934A35752COA9669C8B63.

Note: Joel Roberts Ninde’s daughter and Joel Hunter, Jr. were both born in 1906 In all probability, Joel Roberts Ninde knew of Joel Roberts Hunter and Lethe’s baby,
*Obituary -Elizabeth Hunter Morrill and her husband Gordon established the Gordon and Elizabeth Morrill Music Library at Villa I. Tatti, considered the finest collection on Italian Medieval and Renaissance musicology in Italy. Elizabeth Hunter was the sister of Joel Hunter Jr.http://72.14.203.104/search?q-cache:xrXxo-grQJ:www.itatti.it/images/ITatti page 8
Note: Joel Roberts Hunter Jr. and Elizabeth Hunter Morrill were first cousins once removed of Joel Roberts Ninde.