JANET ROBERTS / 1926-2001
"Taking a day off" was not in the vocabulary of lei shop owner Janet Roberts. Lei shop owner
loved her workShe spent few days away from
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her store and her customersBy Rosemarie Bernardo
rbernardo@starbulletin.com"What a hardworking woman," said Lloyd Roberts, her husband of 42 years who said she worked as early and as late as she could each day.
Roberts, proprietor of Jenny's Lei & Flowers shop at 65 N. Beretania St. died Friday at her home in Honolulu. She was 75.
Roberts was born on Nov. 4, 1926, to Fook Shing and Kam Lee Lau in a Chinatown building next door to the one where she later ran her lei shop and lived.
Roberts, who started stringing flowers together at 8 years old, came from a family involved in the lei business for many years.
Her brothers, Raymond and Henry Lau, were also owners of Cindy's and Sweetheart's lei shops in Chinatown.
Roberts and her husband had bought a lei shop called Jenny's on Maunakea and Pauahi streets and later moved it to a space on Beretania Street in March 1991.
Daughter-in-law Vel Roberts said: "She worked seven days a week. She didn't know what a day off was."
Throughout the years, Roberts developed a rapport with her regular customers.
Customer Jonathan Bradshaw said: "She would always give me advice. She was always willing to listen."
The couple lived above the shop until Roberts suffered injuries from an accident in October 2000.
Roberts was hit by a van that jumped the curb, veered into her store and pinned her against the refrigerator. She returned to work in June, but family members said she had difficulty walking from place to place.
"She never fully recovered from the accident," said her son Lloyd Steven Roberts.
The day she died, there was talk of closing the store for the day, but employees kept the shop open because they knew it would have pleased Roberts.
"She's going to be so missed ... "It's going to be hard to get used to the fact she's gone," said her husband.
"I know she's with God."
Roberts is also survived by sons Henry Dean and Jimmy Wayne; brother George Lau; sisters Loretta Korzon and Doris Lyman; sisters-in-law Cindy Lau and Sweetheart Lau; daughters-in-law Velverdee Roberts and Michelle Roberts, eight grandchildren and many nieces and nephews.
Services will be held on Dec. 7 at 7:30 p.m. at Hawaiian Memorial Park Mortuary.
Burial services will be held the following day at 11 a.m. Aloha attire.