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Deborah Jean Parr Emery ’75

Deborah Jean Parr Emery ’75, April 20, 2013, in San Luis Obispo, California, from staph pneumonia. Deborah’s parents worked for the U.S. State Department and she spent most of her early years in Turkey. After graduating from Reed with a BA in art, she flew to Kabul, Afghanistan, where her parents had been stationed, and worked as a lifeguard. Following a severe back injury, she was flown to Silver Springs, Maryland, where her parents were living at the time, and underwent surgery. Deborah then enrolled at University of Maryland and earned a second BA in business. Her four-year college roommate Ellen Mankoff ’75, who provided details for this memorial, was in graduate school at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore at the time and saw Deborah often. Deborah had a distinguished career in business, beginning with her work with the Opera Company of Boston, where she advanced to the position of comptroller in 1977. After that time, she moved to Seattle with her partner, a set designer with the Seattle Opera Company. In the early ’90s, she was business director for Kitsap Mental Health Services in Bremerton and a finance and operations manager for Bailey-Boushay House in Seattle. In 2005, she earned an MSN from Seattle University College of Nursing, passed the national boards, and became an advanced-practice psychiatric mental health nurse with a focus on addiction. She also was employed with the California Men’s Colony in Atascadero, California, and specialized in working with prisoners recovering from drug and alcohol addiction. Reporting Deborah’s death, her sisters said that Deborah had not been in good health for many years, due to complications of knee replacements, and had suffered repeated bouts of pneumonia.

Appeared in Reed magazine: March 2014