AMERICUS — As she makes her way through her Magnolia Manor assisted living suite, Charlene White Roby, 86, takes a seat to reminisce her early years of being born and raised in the Andrew Chapel Community located just outside of Sumter County, just over the Schley County line.

“My father, Charlie White died when I was two and a half years old,” she said, adding that she and her mother moved to her grandfather, C.C. Jordan’s farm located in Schley County.

“My mother remarried Gordon Feagin. That is when we moved to Americus. I didn’t want to go live with him. I thought of him as an old man. But, I eventually learned to love him. He was a mighty good stepfather,” she said, adding that she finished school at Americus High and attended Georgia Southwestern for a brief period before beginning her employment with the Bank of Commerce. She worked with the bank until she decided to marry and move north.

“It all began while my mother and stepfather were away. They were gone to New York to the World’s Fair,” she said. “I had to stay home. I was still attending school. I was sleeping at my neighbors’. As I was crossing the street, there were four young men walking down the sidewalk. They asked me, ‘Do you know where the Blairs live?’” she said, adding that James R. Blair, then owner/publisher of the Americus Times-Recorder, lived in her neighborhood.

“My grandmother was keeping the Blairs’ baby. Well, a few days later, Mrs. Blair called and invited me and a few of my girlfriends over to attend a Coca-Cola party with the guys. That is what you had back then, instead of coffee or tea, the young kids had Coke parties,” she explained with a smile.

Roby said that is when she met her future husband, Charles Robert Roby, and the pursuit began. However, Charles and his friends and Charlene, herself weren’t ready to settle down. The guys soon left town, returning to their home in Ohio.  Charles soon enlisted in the military, where he was sent to Radio Gunnery School and was stationed at a Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, Fla.

Returning to the south again, Charles couldn’t keep his mind off of Charlene, she said.

“He would send me telegrams and come up on weekends. We were just friends. There was nothing to it,” she said, explaining that he was soon sent overseas to the Japanese islands, Bougainvillea, Papua, New Guinea and Guantanamo Bay.

“I have pictures of them with the girls. I never heard a word from him until he was on his way back; he called and he was in California. He said he was coming under the Golden Gate Bridge. ‘I will be docking shortly,’” he said, adding he would see me in a couple of weeks and he had something for me.

“I was dating someone else. I thought I was to marry him,” she said, adding that she never heard a word from Charles, until one day he showed up telling her he purchased an engagement ring for her and a girl took it from him.

“I told him, ‘what makes you think I would marry you,’” she said with a laugh.

For many months afterwards, Charles kept pursuing Charlene heavily. And she said it was easy when your parents are crazy about him.

“My parents loved him. You know when your parents like him, you don’t like him,” she said with a smile.

However, Charlene softened up a bit and some time after the couple began dating off and on, Charles informed Charlene he was soon returning to Ohio.

“Don’t you think it’s time we get married?” he asked her.

Charlene said yes, and the couple was  soon married and moved to St. Mary’s,  Ohio.

“Charles worked with Good Year. He had a very stressful job. He was very responsible. Charles’ blood pressure stayed sky high; it was then he developed his kidney problems and we didn’t know it. He kept telling me he was selling out and moving to Florida one day and live a stress-free life. I didn’t believe it until he drove the moving van up to the door,” she said, explaining that everyone thought he was moving south because he married a southern girl.

“I told them that wasn’t so. His co-workers wanted him to stay and even offered him a job in Virginia at another plant,” she said, describing the move to Fort Meyers, Fla., where Charles started working in the insurance business.

It was then, Charlene found her husband was suffering with renal failure. Charlene didn’t know then, but she and her husband would become the first participants in what many call the “grassroots of dialysis treatment in the United States.”

“We were told they were testing an artificial kidney machine in Coral Gables,  Fla. At that time, there were only three in the United States, New York, California and Coral Gables,” she said, describing her husband’s early treatments during the early ‘60s.

“The first treatments were what call the peritoneal treatments. It’s where they took something similar to a garden hose, down into his peritoneal cavity and drew the poison out. I thought he was dying. He was dying before he had the treatment. Then, after the treatment, he was fine. I could take him home. Then, he soon needed treatment every four or five days.”

Soon Charlene was one of the first to be trained to operate the first dialysis machines which were designed for home use.

The Robys returned to Americus in 1971, where they found a home which was designed perfectly to accommodate her husband’s dialysis equipment.

“I can not thank Willis Shiver, all the contractors and Perry Plumbing for all the work they did for us,” she said, referring to getting the couple’s new home customized.

“My husband drew out the schematics and Willis hired all the people and supervised the work,” she said. “We had to have a board certified internist to have the machine at home and Frank Wilson III, the VA approved him and when we returned home, every doctor in Americus showed up; I was a nervous wreck,” she said with a laugh adding, “It was an experience I will never forget.”

She said the early testing on dialysis machines was carried out on animals.  

Charlene said her husband was actively involved in the National Association of Patients on Hemodialysis (NAPH), later changed to American Association of Kidney Patients (AAKP). The NAPH was an association which performed dialysis treatment on the floor of Congress, resulting in 1972 legislation which would enacted a program that continues to provide Medicaid funding for dialysis and kidney transplant patients today. The Robys were also actively involved in the opening of the first dialysis clinic in Americus, located on South Lee Street.

“Back then, when we were at the VA hospital in Fort Meyers, it was pitiful,” she said. “There were people lined up down the halls trying to get dialysis treatment. People were dying. I had a woman come up to me, take my face in her hands and squeeze my face, saying ‘Why can they give your husband dialysis and not mine?’” Charlene said she couldn’t say anything. “You either had to be wealthy or volunteer to be tested on these machines,” she said, adding that you had to sign forms that you would promise to return to work and be a productive member of society.

Charles Roby did return to work for a short period of time, retired and enjoyed traveling abroad in an effort to educate and spread public awareness of the need of donors. He survived on dialysis machines for over a decade and a half before he died in the final stages of renal failure in 1985.

As tears filled Charlene’s eyes, she said, “I just want to let people know, just as my husband did, don’t bury a good kidney or body part. Why bury  it when someone else may need it? I know some people feel — I’m not going to desecrate my wife’s body part. I can’t stand the thought of them cutting on them. But, I can’t stress it enough: donate good kidneys, eyes, all parts which are needed. Don’t bury them. Most people don’t think about it until they have experienced a family member who was in need of a part and couldn’’t find it,” she said, clearing her tears as she reached for a photograph of her and Charles prior to her wedding day.

“I was very lucky to have such a good husband and a good father,” she said.

Charlene has a son, Michael Dean Roby, who lives with his wife in Americus. They have two children, Kade and Freda Roby.