Edward Gerock Boyette, adored husband and much-loved father, passed away peacefully on June 24, 2009 in Chadron, Nebraska with his wife and two daughters at his side. He was 85 years old.
A retired dentist originally from North Carolina, he and his wife followed his daughters west, settled in Arizona for fifteen years then relocated, in early 2009, to Nebraska to be closer to his younger daughter, Cynthia, a resident with her family, of Crawford, Nebraska.
Ed Boyette was born on August 1, 1923 in Ahoskie, North Carolina. A graduate of Wake Forest University in North Carolina, he obtained his degree as Doctor of Dental Surgery from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.
Between undergraduate and graduate schools, Ed Boyette served as an Army cartographer during World War II, was in London during the Blitz and in Paris just after the liberation.
In the spring of 1949, on a blind date arranged by a childhood friend from Ahoskie, Ed met the woman who would soon become his wife, Mary Wilmoth Barber – a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (then called Women’s College) now teaching Spanish and English at Needham Broughton High School in Raleigh, North Carolina.
In December 1950, Edward married Mary Wilmoth at Hayes Barton Methodist Church in Raleigh. There were eight guests: his parents, her parents, and her sister, brother-in-law, and their two sons. At the time, Ed was a sophomore in dental school in Atlanta; Mary Wilmoth was teaching in Raleigh. They lived apart but spent every possible weekend together in Columbia, South Carolina – halfway between Atlanta and Raleigh. He would drive up; she would take the train down.
The summer of 1951 they spent together in a one-room apartment in her mother’s house. Mary Wilmoth worked as a receptionist at Rex Hospital in Raleigh while Edward worked for the State of North Carolina. Later that fall they moved to Atlanta together, into an apartment on Parkway Drive. They were given a reduced rent to super the four-apartment complex.
In 1953, Dr. Boyette began his dental practice in Enfield, North Carolina. Four years later, in 1957, Dr. and Mrs. Boyette welcomed their first daughter, Kathleen Burton. Shortly thereafter, in 1959, they became the proud parents of their second daughter, Cynthia Parker.
In 1960, the Boyette Family moved to Butner, North Carolina where Dr. Boyette began practice at John Umstead Hospital. He was the head of the dental department there at his retirement in 1983.
For the next decade, he and his wife traveled widely, spending a great deal of time visiting their daughters. In 1996, Edward and Mary Wilmoth relocated to Mesa, Arizona near Cynthia where they remained until January 2009.
Dr. Boyette was a widely respected member of his community and church, a devoted husband and father and a man who loved to work with his hands. He always had numerous renovation and construction projects underway at his homes and on his properties.
He is survived by his wife of fifty-nine years, Mary Wilmoth Barber Boyette, his daughter Kathleen Burton Boyette, his daughter Cynthia Parker Boyette Callahan, her husband Stephen and their two daughters Stephanie and Katherine. He is terribly missed.
In lieu of flowers, please consider donations to the Children’s Home Society of North Carolina, 604 Meadow St., Greensboro, NC 57405-6600 (336) 274-1538 in memory of Dr. Edward G. Boyette.