Dr. William Edward Roberts, age 68, of Linville – Land Harbor, passed away on Tuesday, September 26, 2023 at the Memorial Campus of Mission Hospitals in Asheville.
Born on May 27, 1955 in Buncombe County, he was the son of the late Bill Roberts and the late Dorothy Lytle Crowell. In addition to his parents, he was also preceded in death by his brother; Robert Michael Roberts and an infant sister, Renee Roberts. Also preceding him in death was his stepfather; Richard ‘Dick’ Crowell; his paternal grandparents, Bob C. and Annie Johnson Roberts and his maternal grandparents, John and Jackie Morris Lytle.
Prior to retirement, Edward was a departmental chair at the New York City College of Technology. He earned his PhD from North Carolina State University in 2009 in Technology Education. He had also earned his Masters Degree from Appalachian State University in Industrial Technology, his Bachelor of Science Degree in Industrial Technology from Appalachian State University and his A.A.S Degree in Industrial Technology from Mayland Community College. In 1977, he graduated from Gupton-Jones College of Mortuary Science and was a 1974 graduate of Harris High School.
Edward was an avid football fan. Several years ago, he served as a statistician for Mitchell High School and took great pride in being a part of Mountaineer football. He also was a fan of the Appalachian State Mountaineers and enjoyed following them. He also was a fan of the U.N.C. Tar Heels basketball team and enjoyed cooking.
Edward and Julie began dating in 2005 while Edward was working on his doctorate degree. Julie was looking for a husband and father for her neuro divergent son. She needed help raising Colin because her doctors said she needed to get her affairs in order due to chronic respiratory failure not responding to medicine. They dated over several years. He was the emergency contact every time Julie would arrive at an ER usually with Colin in tow.
In late 2008, they became engaged with plans to marry in January 2009. Six months after the wedding, Edward adopted Colin at age 8.
At this time Edward was embracing his wife’s Judaism and he wanted to pursue converting to Judaism. He completed an online program that led to a conversion ceremony including the ritual Mikva bath. His Hebrew name was, Eli Eliezer Ben Sarah and Abraham.
In 2010, when Edward was unable to find a full-time position at Appalachian State, he began looking for a new landing spot as a professor of technology education. He applied at many schools and had interviews at two universities finally settling on a tenure track position as assistant professor of technology education at CUNY city tech campus in Brooklyn.
Edward began teaching on his days off to offset school tuition at the Hebrew Academy of Five Towns and Far Rockaway where Colin was attending middle school and then high school.
He began attending the Tsama Nafshi Yeshiva in Jerusalem each summer for four consecutive years. Julie and Edward started an American Friends of Tsama Nafshi, a nonprofit 5013C organization that was chartered to teach Torah (Jewish Bible) for mature men who did not have the opportunity to learn in their youth. The nonprofit status allowed rabbis to raise money in the United States for the Yeshiva and offer tax deductible incentives. This allowed the yeshiva to expand their class offerings and expand the number of teachers in the program. By 2016, Edward was having increasing problems with his congenital heart condition and stepped down from his role. He became chair of the technology education program at City Tech in Brooklyn. In 2019, he began getting very out of breath and could barely complete his responsibilities during the fall semester. His doctor diagnosed him with worsening heart valve disease and recommended his second open heart surgery to replace four heart valves. The surgery was not really a success and Edward was forced to go on medical leave for the next eighteen months. He struggled through many second opinions with increasing worsening prognosis.
Edward had already decided after his conversion that when he passed he wanted to be buried in the traditional Jewish burial customs. Over the next three years, Julie and Edward began looking at all available opportunities, which included being seen at three of the top teaching hospitals in New York City to get him a heart and kidney transplant. He did not qualify because he originally had the novel Ross procedure at Mission Hospital back in 1999. Julie got Edward seen at the NYU heart transplant program. He was again told that he would not qualify for the heart transplant and he didn’t qualify for the LVAD, which is an assistive device to help the left sided heart failure, but there were no good solutions for people with both left sided and right sided heart failure. In March 2020, on the same day that all New York City hospitals closed for elective surgery due to Covid, Edward had his third open heart surgery, this time fixing his tricuspid heart valve. Over the next few months, while the surgery worked its own part, Edward began developing heart failure. He was out of breath, taking just a few steps. The heart failure quickly worsened over the next year and it was soon re-diagnosed as End Stage Heart Failure. Soon, he was also in end stage three and then stage four chronic kidney disease. By the late Spring of 2020, Edward had fully medically retired from the CUNY system. He was repeatedly hospitalized for a series of complications each time being told he had a few hours or a few days or a few weeks left. It was a very horrific time and it was affecting Edward a great deal in many ways.
Julie and Edward made the decision to relocate back to North Carolina, to be closer to his son, Clayton and his grandchildren Addison and Ansley Roberts. They purchased a home in the Land Harbor Highland Hills community in Avery County. Julie and Edward quickly began remodeling the home to make it winter ready and to put native gardens throughout the property, both on the back slope, facing River Hollow, and in the front yard facing Windridge.
Covid slowed the renovations a great deal, so everything moved at a snail’s pace. The work was completed over the winter of 2020 and ending in late 2021. Edward was continuing to be hospitalized for various emergencies and worsening heart failure and problems with fluids and was put on severe water restrictions to try to stop the worsening heart failure. By 2023, he was frequently being hospitalized for systemic infections and difficulty managing his heart valve and fluid retention. In the summer of 2023, he had a series of falls and was hospitalized at Cannon Hospital and then transferred to Life Care Center Skilled Nursing in Banner Elk, and then a month or so later he was transferred to the Greens of Spruce Pine, formally known as the Brian Center, he continued to do subacute rehab at both of these facilities, but he had several complications that led to two hospitalizations. During the second hospitalization at Mission hospital, Edward was originally doing well and was being evaluated for a failure of his gallbladder and the bile ducts to the liver. He still complained that he was not feeling well, and was in a lot of pain. in a matter of days he worsened dramatically and was transferred to the Critical Unit ICU at Mission Hospital.
Within a few days things worsened dramatically and his heart failure worsened dramatically, his kidneys were no longer working at all and he was going into complete organ failure. Clayton and Julie Roberts made the difficult decision to put him on comfort measures as the doctor said there was nothing else that could be done. By the following morning, Edward had lost his long fight with heart failure.
Left to cherish his memory is his wife, Julie Levitt Roberts of Linville – Land Harbor; his sons; Clayton Roberts and wife, Jessica of Bakersville and Colin Roberts of Michigan; his sister; Michelle Roberts of Weaverville; his grandchildren; Addison and Ansley Roberts; his niece and nephew; Morgan Robinson and Gavin McCulloch; and his great niece and nephews; Trevin, Tayln, and Tylie Robinson.
Graveside services and interment were on Thursday, September28, 2023 in the Spruce Pine Memorial Cemetery.
In lieu of flowers and at Edward’s request, please make donations to; Harris High School Class of 1974. Please make checks payable to Debra Mills, 104 Trapper’s Run Drive, Burnsville, NC 28714.
Words of comfort may be emailed to the family by going to our website, www.webbfh.com, selecting Edward Roberts’ name, and then you may sign his guestbook.
Webb Funeral Home has been entrusted with the arrangements for Mr. Roberts and is honored to be serving the Roberts family.
Edward’s obituary has also been posted on Facebook for viewing
