William S. Werdel, 84, beloved child of God, returned to his heavenly father’s eternal embrace on October 14, 2024.

William (Bill) passed peacefully in the presence of his family and in the loving home he made with them in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Born in Lackawanna, New York, Bill was a lifelong student of the written word, the beauty of numbers, the history of the world old and new, and the shared language of a good jazz song well played.

Growing up, Bill was a champion orator at Canisius High School in Buffalo before pursuing divinity studies as a young man. Those studies ultimately led him to Fordham University in New York City in pursuit of — he thought at the time — the Jesuit priesthood. But it was there that he discovered that God had been leading him on a different path all along — to Anne, the love of his life and his partner in marriage for 50 years.

From Bill’s life with Anne a family grew — immense in love and in laughter. Five children and, from them, 12 grandchildren.

Home was always where Bill and Anne made it, whether the rough and tumble Lower East Side of New York City, the suburban streets of Poughkeepsie, the rolling hills of southwestern Germany, or the green pines and oaks of Raleigh — the place where they would grow deep roots of family, friendship and fellowship over 40 years.

Bill’s professional life began with teaching math to middle school boys at the Nativity Mission Center — the very first of what would become a network of Nativity model schools across the country. Later, upon recognizing the dawn of the personal computing revolution he learned to write software. Those early programming skills lead him to a long and rewarding career with IBM, where among other achievements, he headed a team building one of the earliest iterations of a fully digitized supermarket checkout line scanner.

In retirement, Bill along with Anne found his truest calling: giving back from so much that God had given him, to others who had little. He and Anne founded and ran the Door Fund ministry out of their then spiritual home of Sacred Heart Cathedral. Anyone in need of anything — whether a month’s rent, a week’s worth of groceries, or assistance with a job application — could come for help and get it.

Above and beyond their work at Sacred Heart, Bill and Anne made soups and homemade breads to feed the homeless in Moore Square Park on weekends. On the occasion someone complained that food distributions to the unhoused were a nuisance, Bill worked with authorities to ensure they would continue.

Bill was a man of great integrity who never wavered in his belief that choosing the “real” would always lead a path to God. He accepted peacefully the reality of his kidney failure and the limitations at-home dialysis imposed over the last 3 and half years of his life.

Even as his physical strength faded in the last years of his illness, his heart remained large and open to the world around him and to all of the goodness and grace he had seen it produce.

He is preceded in death by his parents Wilfred and Laverne, and his sister Judy.

He is survived by his loving wife and partner, Anne, his children — Joanne, Matthew, Mark, Paul and Daniel — their spouses Clifton, Mary Beth, Jessica, Amna and Megan — and his grandchildren — Beatrice, Peter, William, Karam, Mark, Alex, Violet, Lina, Benjamin, Arthur and Robin.

Of each of them he always carried a piece. Wherever he went.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be held in the chapel of St. Raphael the Archangel Catholic Church on Tuesday, October 22nd at 11 o'clock in the morning.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Door Fund at Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral.

In his memory, his family invites you to enjoy a Peter Sellers movie, an Errol Garner record and an episode – or perhaps several – of Blue Bloods.