Dorothy Jeanne Weaver Roberts of Lillington, NC, passed away on Saturday, January 18, 2014 of congestive heart failure after several years of declining health. Dorothy was born on September 23, 1923, in Rogers, AR to John Virgil Weaver and Anna Lou Andrews Weaver. Her family moved to Canton, OH, then to Tulsa, OK where she grew up and graduated from Will Rogers High School. After working as a secretary for Union Carbide during WWII, she completed her Bachelor's Degree in Music from Oklahoma Baptist University. She then earned a Masters Degree in Church Music from the Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, KY before moving to Mars Hill, NC in 1950 to teach voice and lead the chorus at Mars Hill College. There she met and married David Moore Roberts and started her family. During a several year hiatus from the college, she began to raise her three children, taught private piano lessons and served as minister of music at the Mars Hill Baptist Church. She returned to the faculty at Mars Hill College in 1962 and taught there until her retirement in 1990.

Dorothy trained numerous talented singers who went on to lead major church congregations and become faculty members at various universities around the Southeast as well as perform at the highest levels of their profession, including the Metropolitan Opera. In her private life, Dorothy showed remarkable courage and devotion to her family as she lovingly raised her children as a single parent after the premature death of her husband in 1966. She continued her ministry at the church in Mars Hill and worked diligently to promote music programs in the public schools there in Madison County. During her later years at Mars Hill College, she took on a leadership role in Delta Kappa Gamma, the international society for women educators, serving as president of the local chapter.

During retirement she expanded her talents as a seamstress by taking up the making of bobbin lace and traveling extensively with her sister, Mary Ellen Jones, to lace conventions around the U.S. Dorothy moved to Lillington, NC in 2003 to be closer to family. An accomplished pianist and organist, she continued to play the piano until the very end of her life, sometimes playing from memory the classical selections that she so loved, and at other times accompanying family members or fellow residents at the Green Leaf Care Center as they sang hymns, Christmas carols or show tunes. She always delighted at the musical talents of her children and grandchildren and loved any opportunity to listen to them perform.

She was predeceased by her parents, her two sisters, Mary Ellen Jones and Virginia Lou Wren, and her husband, David Roberts. She is survived by her children, John Roberts and wife, Lee Ann, Jim Roberts and wife, Teresa, and Debra Sampson and husband David and by 7 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren.

The family wishes to thank the caregivers at Green Leaf Care Center (previously Brookfield Retirement Center) in Lillington for their excellent care in Dorothy's final years, as well as the staff of Liberty Hospice.

A celebration of Dorothy's life will be held at Memorial Baptist Church in Buies Creek at 11:00 am on Tuesday, January 21, 2014. A graveside service will be held at Mars Hill Baptist Church Cemetery at 1:00 pm Saturday, January 25, 2014 in Mars Hill, NC, where she will be interred next to her husband, David. The family will receive friends Monday, January 20, 2014 from 6:00-8:00 pm at O'Quinn-Peebles-Phillips Funeral Home & Crematory in Lillington.

In lieu of flowers, a contribution to the Dorothy Weaver Roberts Endowed Music Scholarship at Mars Hill University would be most appreciated.
A celebration of Dorothyâ