UNMC home to Rogers’ memorial

Standing from left, Chancellor Harold M. Maurer, M.D., Robert Rogers Jr. , John Rogers and Mary Day. Seated are Bob Rogers and Molly Romero.

Roberta Rogers spent hours around her kitchen table, chatting with old friends, welcoming new ones and introducing them to each other.

Now, UNMC employees will be able to share in that tradition.

On Thursday, Roberta Rogers’ family and friends unveiled a “conversational grouping” consisting of a love seat, two chairs and small table. The memorial, designed by Omaha artist Mary Day, sits in the Swanson Courtyard.

John and Robert Jr. Rogers unveil the memorial to their mother, pictured below.

“She’d talk to anybody about anything at the drop of a hat,” said her son Robert Jr., who teaches at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, Nova Scotia. “She’d be at a bus stop and start talking to people.”

The tribute, titled “A Conversation with Roberta,” was the idea of her husband, Bob Rogers, who wanted the display on the UNMC campus because Roberta was a big supporter of the medical center. She worked as a volunteer in the University Hospital Thrift Store the last 18 years of her life, logging more than 1,470 hours of volunteer time.

“Roberta and Bob are probably the most knowledgeable art people in Nebraska,” said UNMC Chancellor Harold M. Maurer, M.D., who told how he visited an art gallery in Bethesda, Md., and was asked if he knew Omaha’s Gallery ’72 owners.

“Roberta was a person who helped a ton of people,” said her husband. “I’m probably as lucky a fellow as ever lived. First of all, I had a collision with Roberta.”

The display was funded by a donation from Art Omaha, a non-profit corporation established to support public art in the metropolitan Omaha area. Inscribed on the love seat, which is made of fabricated concrete, is a quote from Dame Edna Everage: “My mother used to say that there are no strangers, only friends you haven’t met yet.”

Artist Mary Day talks about the memorial.

“Roberta took great pleasure in repeating this quote,” Day said. “She loved to bring people together and had a wonderful way of making people feel comfortable.”

Inscribed on one of the chairs is Roberta Rogers’ birth date, Dec. 16, 1914; the other has her date of death, Oct. 25, 2001.

Born in Natchez, Miss., the mother of two also volunteered at the Joslyn Art Museum for more than 20 years, presenting art workshops to local elementary children.

“She didn’t have any favorites, but each and every one of us, if she had a favorite, would be that person,” said her friend, Molly Romero. “She worked at bringing the best art and best artists here to expose the people of Omaha to what good contemporary art is.”

Bob Rogers and Molly Romero.

On Thursday, her familiar potluck conversations continued as family and friends sat on the memorial chairs and bench and reminisced.

“This spot is perfect,” said her son John, a physics teacher at Westside High School. “Her memorial should not be in a secluded little spot, but in a place where people can visit and enjoy it.”