Debby was born Debby Gleason, in Burlington, Iowa in 1950. Not a lot is really known about her early years, other than the odd family story. I'm still finding things out, to this day, about things she did as a youth. She loved Paul McCartney as a teenager, then Don McLean became a favourite. I remember waking up one night when I was small and coming out to the living room and finding her with headphones on in a dark room singing along to some album. Funny, because I do the same thing now.

Anyway, one day she fell in love with the boy next door (literally), Bob Romanski, and they married in the pioneer church at Stuhr Museum in Nebraska. I was the flowergirl and I still have the picture of me peeping around a tree as they kissed right after the ceremony. About a year later came Kelly, and prouder parents there could not be. Both Bob and Debby worked in Broadcasting and we moved around a lot growing up. Eventually we ended up in Monterey, California which we all loved very much. the climate suited all of us and was close enough to San Francisco so our dad could go to the games, something he was fond of doing with Kelly - tomboy that she was, and sometimes still is.

We were all very happy, Kelly and I got to grow up in a household full of love and humour - even if we sometimes took advantage of it at the time it'ssomething for which we'll always be grateful for now. Things got pretty hectic with the jobs and raising a couple of kid and a teenager and the decision was made to move back to the midwest. Debby's sister had contracted bone cancer and so back we came to help her out and to make a go of life back in the midwest.

Not long after moving back to Nebraska, our family lost Bob suddenly, on December 21, 1992. It truly broke Debby's heart because he was the world to her. I never knew how deeply she'd been affected by Bob's death until after her own when I found some scribbled writings that were described how she felt. It made me see how much Bob meant to my mom and how much she really missed him... I mean, I knew, of course. Bob was fantastic. He was a great father to me, and will always be my dad, even if he wasn't my biological father, but I never really knew the scope of how deeply they loved each other. And it was a truly special thing.

Throughout all of this time Debby always worked on her skills as a writer and as an artist. I have some of her earliest work, when she was a teenager and drawing pictures of some of her idols in chalks, right up until the time of her death when she was exploring watercolours. She wrote poetry, and short stories for adults and for children (because her grandchild, my daughter, was very important to her.) that amazed me and I hope to share as much of them as possible here.

On February 28, 200,1 Debby died suddenly from a pulmonary embolism. It was shocking to us, and scary, and I still feel lost without her. But I hope this little website will allow some of her creativity to live on.