Educator, small business owner and former National Alumni president of Xavier U., Vera W. Robert, dies

Vera Williams Robert, an education and small business owner in Los Angeles, California, died on February 15, 2019. She was 89.

The native New Orleanian who was among the throngs of Orleanians to migrate to California in the 1950s, was the daughter of Ernest and Embra Henry Williams. She attended St. Peter Claver Catholic School and Xavier Preparatory, and was a proud graduate of Xavier University, Class of 1951.

She demonstrated her love of her alma mater throughout the years by being an active member of the University’s Los Angeles Alumni, as well as a recruiter of students in the Los Angeles area to attend XULA. She would later be elected President of Xavier’s National Alumni Association, a position she held for two consecutive terms, the first ever to do so.

VERA W. ROBERT

Mrs. Robert also received a Master of Science in School Management and Administration from Pepperdine University.

Her first teaching assignment was in Covington, Louisiana. After moving to Los Angeles she taught third and fourth graders at Manchester Avenue School in South Los Angeles, and later became a curriculum advisor to teachers for over a thirty-year span.

When Mrs. Robert was a teenager, she met someone would captured her heart. After eight years and two tours of military duty by him, she and Melvin Robert married in 1955. They would remain best friends until Melvin’s death in 1977. Two children were born from that union, Melvin Robert Jr. and Christine.

Also from that union, came the F&M Market, started by her husband but which Mrs. Robert operated, along with her children, for years, following her husband’s death. The market was famous for fresh meats and old-fashioned union butchers, but most importantly, long before it came fashionable, Ms. Robert was determined to hire young men from the community. Many who worked at the store lived within walking distance. For many young men F & M was their first job. It instilled in them a sense of responsibility and many credit their F & M experience with pursing successful careers ranging from education to law enforcement to first responders.

She is survived by her two children, their spouses Denise and Clarissa, grandsons Melvin 3rd and Erik, her brother Ernest Williams Jr., her cousin Juanita Harang of Houston, Tex., and a host of nieces and nephews.

This article originally published in the March 4, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.