Sarah R. McKeever

Sarah R. McKeever, of Asheville, NC passed away peacefully at home on July 4th after a long term illness. Sarah grew up southeast of the Catskill Mountains in a little town called Wappingers Falls, NY. She was the daughter of the late Wainwright and Geraldine Roberts. Sarah attended Roy C. Ketcham High School, Wappingers Falls, NY graduating with a Regents diploma in June 1973. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Geology in 1978 and her Masters of Science degree in 1981 from East Carolina State University.

Sarah accepted a job as a geologist with Texaco and moved to New Orleans in 1981. She was a professional geologist with numerous accomplishments including being part of the team which drilled the first long range horizontal well in the Gulf of Mexico.

In 1987, Sarah married Richard McKeever, a geophysicist from Jim Thorpe, PA. They first met and lived in New Orleans until moving to Asheville in 1998. They have two adult children, Kimberly and John. Sarah and Richard were married for 34 years.

Sarah was an energetic volunteer on the Ballantree homeowners association, she constantly volunteered in her children’s schools, her daughter’s girl scout troop, the Colburn Gem and Mineral Museum and the Pisgah Wildlife Education Center. Sarah and her husband Richard were listed in the Asheville Citizen Times as a “Hometown Hero” for their work at the Colburn Museum in 2000. For many years they taught the museum’s outreach program in schools through out Western North Carolina. She was an encouragement to many students as a female role model in the field of science.

Sarah’s favorite hobbies were genealogy, quilting, gardening, blueberry picking, hiking, birding, camping and travel. Sarah and her husband always had a camping adventure planned to a historic site or national park. Some of Sarah’s favorite trips were: A Lewis and Clark 200th anniversary camping adventure from St. Louis to the mouth of the Columbia River in Oregon, numerous trips to Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Prince Edward Island, the Canadian Rockies, a trip to Scotland and Ireland, onto the mid-Atlantic Ridge in Iceland and onto Norway north of the Arctic Circle (71 degrees North Latitude), Europe’s most northern point on the continent.

Sarah became interested in family genealogy at the early age of 10 and worked on it until she became an accomplished genealogist. Sarah traced both sides of the family back to the Revolutionary War and into the 1600s in America and many centuries earlier in Europe. Sarah loved her country and is a Daughter of the American Revolution.

If you visit Sarah’s home, you will find many of her beautiful quilts hanging on the walls with different ones for different seasons such as Christmas.

The most important thing to Sarah was her family, she was a loyal and dedicated loving mother and wife. She was gentle, patient, kind, honorable and always had a positive spirit. She was loved and will be missed by many. Sarah is a member of Living Savior Lutheran church in South Asheville.

Our encouraging Bible verse: 2 Corinthians 5: “For we know that if this tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”

Surviving Sarah are her husband, Richard; adult children, Kimberly and John; her sister Susan Skaddan and husband Dana; niece and nephew, Brandy and Ray; her Grand Aunt Lucie MacArthur and numerous cousins and friends.

The care of Sarah will be done by Groce Funeral Home at Lake Julian in Arden. There will be a funeral service at Living Savior Lutheran Church on Wednesday, July 7, 2021 at 12:00 pm. The family will receive friends from 11:00 am to 12:00 pm. Refreshments will be provided. Burial will be private at Calvary Cemetery, Fletcher, NC.

Contributions in Lieu of flowers can be made to Living Savior Lutheran Church, 301 Overlook Road, Asheville, NC 28803.