Pierre Roberts, Jr

Pierre Nicholas Roberts, Jr., -- (pronounced, for some reason, like a fishing pier) -- was born in Fort Worth on July 3, 1929 to Pierre and Della Leveridge Roberts, and left us on April 17, 2025. At a very early age he decided that his birthday should be celebrated beginning at least one day before it and until the end of the day after it, and that continued to be his expectation even after his first great-grandson, Quinn, was born on the Fourth of July in 2013.

In 1945, when he was a junior at Brenham High School, he was very nervous about giving a note to a senior beauty - Sarah Carolyn Holle - asking her whether she would consider going to the Junior-Senior prom with him. The two words written in the note that she gave back to him - "You bet!" - were every bit as memorable to him as the two that he managed to convince her to say about four years later: "I do!"

The following year, the Brenham Cubs football team recorded numbers that seemed to be unbelievable until confirmed by researching the newspapers. Points scored: 467. Points scored by opponents: 18. These numbers are on the plaque that Pierre received when he was inducted into the Brenham Cubs Hall of Honor, in 2011, for his role on that team as the quarterback and middle linebacker. Floyd Sommers, who was another standout on that team, played safety and, as the primary running back, gained more yards that year than anyone else in the state.

Believe it or not, Brenham did not have a baseball team back then, but Pierre was also able to enjoy running track, and was good enough at basketball to earn the nickname "Swish Roberts," according to him. (That claim has never been corroborated to this day by anyone.)

Pierre earned a football scholarship to TCU even though he was only 16 years old at the time that he graduated, and reported to school soon after turning 17 in July. We can only imagine how tough it was for him with the veterans returning at the end of WWII. The way that he always described it was that he was a still-wet-behind-the-ears kid, and they were "whiskey-drinking, women-chasing, cigar-smoking MEN." A knee injury sealed his fate. He wasn't going to play much.

But, luckily for him, his date to the Junior-Senior prom showed up at TCU after graduating from Blinn Junior College, and he made sure to get his degree in Business Administration after just three years, catching up to her so that they could graduate together and then get married, soon after he turned 20, on September 24, 1949.

After a brief stint trying to sell life insurance door-to-door, which seemed to have produced more funny stories than income, Pierre thought that he was doing well in his job with Proctor & Gamble, so he resisted at first his father's suggestion that they return to Brenham to take over his territory selling coffee. Nevertheless, six weeks after the arrival of their first child, Gary, in December of 1950, they moved back, and Pierre went to work for the Duncan Coffee Company. They loved being back in Brenham. Over the next four years, like so many of their friends, they added to their family,  with the arrival of Donald in 1953 and Nancy Carol in 1955. Pierre and Sarah caught the eye of the top people in the company. So, in 1957, just seven months after building a house in Walnut Hill, they were transferred to Houston, where they bought the first house on their block in Meyerland. They were always so grateful to have had the good fortune to participate in the incredible story of the Duncan Coffee Company, whose growth and success was so impressive that it resulted in a very favorable merger with the Coca-Cola Company. There were so many special and dynamic people that were involved in that growth, and associating with them was an opportunity that Pierre and Sarah cherished. They always especially appreciated how fortunate the Roberts family has been to have enjoyed for these many years the influence and friendship of the families of Charles W. Duncan, Jr. and his brother, John.

In 1970 Pierre and Sarah bought a beautiful farm near Brenham and, in 1971, decided to move back and build a house at "Spring Hill Farm." Soon after moving, tragedy struck when their daughter Nancy died in an automobile accident at the age of 16 years. They never got over that, and wouldn't have wanted to, but their faith was not diminished, and they never allowed that pain to affect their determination to continue to live good and meaningful lives. With support from friends and family, Pierre and Sarah were able to play a significant role in the improvement of Brenham's public library, undertaking those efforts as a legacy of Nancy, knowing how important books and learning were in her life.

Once back in Brenham, Pierre continued to be a hard worker and enjoyed success in quite a few business ventures. Being an investor in a holding company that acquired various businesses, he was called upon right away to go to Anchorage, Alaska to run one of those acquisitions - the company that had been awarded the contract to coat all of the 42-inch pipes that were going to be used to lay the Trans-Alaska Pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to the port of Valdez. That proved to be quite an adventure. Forming a Real Estate brokerage business that specialized in farms and ranches, and purchasing a business named Green Grain Feed and Seed, which was also a wholesale beer distributorship, meant that he wore many different hats at a time. And, of course, running cattle for over 60 years meant that he needed to wear a hat for that, too. With so many things going on for such a long time, it is no wonder that so many people attest to the huge influence that Pierre and Sarah had on their lives. Many superlatives and adjectives have been used to describe him, but the description that is as apropos as any - and the one that his surviving son has heard probably more often than any other recently -- is that he was a great man.

After hearing about his passing, one of our cousins remarked: "He was truly one in a million." Even until the very end of his time with us, and after a fair bit of time had passed since the dementia that he experienced had begun to significantly affect the quality of his life, he could still somehow manage to light up his charismatic charm enough to fool someone who didn't already know better into thinking, at least briefly, that he was still totally "with it." That almost makes one wonder whether during all of these years that people have considered him to be brilliant, energetic, engaged, empathetic, fun, funny, warm, wise, loving, commanding when appropriate, and in so many other ways just awesome, it was just more a matter that his magnetic personality had somehow kind of hypnotized everyone into thinking that he was all of that. Anyway, we're grateful that the spark didn't die until he passed.

Above all else, though, Pierre was devoted deeply to his family and friends, working tirelessly and unselfishly to support them in every way possible. Pierre has missed dearly his beloved Sarah since October 27, 2021, and his son, Gary William, whom we lost just seventeen days after Sarah's passing. He is survived by Gary's wife Sabrina and their children Will and Olivia Roberts; his son Donald (Donny) and his wife Melanie; Donny's oldest daughter, Sarah Beth Roberts, and her mother Elizabeth Beeton; Melanie's son Broc Bosse; Donny and Melanie's daughter Kate; and Sarah Beth's husband, Stakely McConnell, and their sons Quinn, Colt, Andrew, Liam and Jack McConnell.

A funeral service will be held at the First United Methodist Church in Brenham at 2pm, Thursday, April 24, 2025 with Pastor Vickie Simons officiating. Funeral arrangements have been entrusted to Memorial Oaks Chapel, 1306 Main Street, Brenham, Texas. To post a tribute to the family, please visit www.memorialoakschapel.com.