Roberta Estep

Roberta Ann Kay Estep was born in Phoenix, Arizona on January 10, 1961, to Ann Diane

Volckhausen and William Francis Kay, a year and two days after her brother, William Alexander

Kay. She was not long in Arizona before her parents moved them to Marshfield,

Massachusetts, where her sister, Kathryn Yvonne Kay, was born.

They lived in Marshfield for 10 years, near her mother's sister Joan Phyllis Barry, her husband

Peter Barry, and their two children, Peter Jr and Mark, before moving back to Phoenix to spend

her teen years. Bert (Bertie, Berta, Bert-o-licious, choose your affectionate nickname, just don't

call her Roberta!) graduated from Alhambra High School in 1979. As little as she liked school

and academics, Bert found her passion in the adrenaline rush and the siren call of the

ambulance. She took her first course towards becoming an EMT at Phoenix Community

College.

After spending one year at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Bert moved back to Marshfield

with her mother and sister. In amongst operating an ice cream truck with her sister one

summer and working at the South Shore Respite Care Center, where she lovingly cared for

residents with developmental disabilities, Bert became a certified EMT and then joined the

ambulance service operating out of the Marshfield Police Department, where she worked for

several years. Bert went on to become a Registered Nurse through the Brockton Hospital

School of Nursing, graduating in 1990, beating both her more academically-minded siblings into

a career!

After graduating from nursing school, Bert accepted a prestigious position in the ER at Johns

Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. While living in Baltimore, Bert met her

future husband, Donald Denny Estep. When Don retired from the Baltimore Police

Department, they decided they wanted a warmer climate and moved to Englewood, Florida,

where Bert worked in the ER at a hospital in Port Charlotte.

Bert loved the holidays and having cookouts with lots of friends, so it was only fitting that she

and Don got married on the 4 th of July, 1996. (To her mother and sister's great chagrin, she did

not tell them until the day of!!)

On a trip around the South, visiting Civil War sites, Bert and Don decided to move to

Chattanooga, Tennessee, where Bert continued her ER career at the Parkridge Medical Center,

settling down in Harrison, Tennessee. At Parkridge Bert made so many wonderful friends and

impacted so many lives with her warmth, humor, delicious cooking, and a generosity of soul

that always ensured that those in need, children, elderly, even animals, received things like

shoes and coats, blankets and toys, to help them through the tough times.

In her younger years, Bert loved to go out dancing, camping, and playing softball with her

colleagues and friends. One of her greatest joys was cooking and sharing with everyone she

knew, from her colleagues and friends to all those who came to her house delivering packages,

mowing her lawn, fixing a broken pipe, and even picking up her garbage! No one came to her

house without going away with a little bag of home-made goodies! Her colleagues and friends

got to partake of not only her famous Crack Bars, but everything else she found a recipe for

that she just had to make!

One of her more successful endeavors happened last August at the Marshfield Fair. Entering

baked goods into the Marshfield Fair is a family tradition, starting in 1962 when her mother first

entered corn bread and won first place! Whenever Bert was in town, she would find something

to enter. Last year, after testing out multiple recipes on her friends, she entered pecan sticky

buns and an apple caramel bread, winning first and second place!!

After she retired, Bert loved going to markets to support the local craftspeople, finding all sorts

of treasures for her yard, her kitchen, and her family and friends, not to mention the trips to

Sweetwater, from which she would return with a basket full of cheese! She became quite

active in the Chattanooga Blue Bird Society, helping to build nesting boxes and monitor the

local population. Bert had a bluebird box in her front yard, with a spy camera inside to monitor

the activity, and it was one of her great pleasures to watch the chicks hatch and then take wing.

She was affectionately called the Bird Whisperer, as her chicks were always the first to hatch in

the spring.

After celebrating her brother's retirement as a commercial pilot, flying on his last flight from Las

Vegas to El Paso and back, Bert found out that her cancer, that she thought she had beaten

three years before, had come back with a vengeance. After a very short and intense battle,

accompanied by her brother and sister and close friends, Bert died at home on May 27, 2025,

with her sister by her side. She was 64.

Roberta Ann Kay Estep brought smiles and fun, food and laughter, to all those around her. She

touched many souls, as evidenced by the facebook posts overflowing with words of a person

full of love and kindness and a very generous spirit. She died far too young, and will be sorely

missed by all those who knew her. A celebration of her life will take place in Harrison at the

end of August.

Donations in her honor can be made to:

Chattanooga Bluebird Society

PO Box 886

Hixson, TN 37343