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A service will be held at 1 p.m. Saturday, June 17, at Trinity Lutheran Church in Bonners Ferry, followed by a private family committal at Grandview Cemetery. Some of Debbie's ashes will be spread at a later date.
A Celebration of Life and potluck will take place the same day starting at 5 p.m. at the home of Ron Atwood, 931 Treetop Bluff Lane, Bonners Ferry. Please bring your memories and stories of Debbie to share.
Debbie was born in Bonners Ferry on July 17, 1961, to Frank and Anna May Spalding. She attended grade school in Bonners Ferry and graduated from Bonners Ferry High in 1980. She worked at Deep Creek Lodge fulltime after graduating and there is where she met and worked with the love of her life and future husband, Ron.
They married in June of 1981, living at Deep Creek until 1983, when they decided to seek there fortune in Alaska. The plan was to stay a few years and return home. They stayed 25 years.
Debbie worked the first two years as a waitress in dinner houses in Anchorage then followed her husband into the oilfields of the North Slope. She was a housekeeper at the Kuparuk Camp for the next 18 years. She loved remote work and deeply cared about her residents.
She retired in 2006, took a year off then worked her last job as an office administrator with no formal training. As was her way in life, she taught herself all the skills needed to succeed with no schooling.
In 2009 they made the difficult decision to leave her beloved Alaska. It was time to come home and be close to her family. Debbie found her dream piece of land in Paradise Valley, designing the house herself.
She was always thinking of the next project to make their home better working on ideas all the way to the end. If you have been to her house you know her dreams came true.
Debbie was a natural caregiver who helped people during her entire life. She did it out of love and respect with a genuine spirit that showed her true compassion for people in need. She would help family, friends and people she did not even know, it was just her way.
She showed us all how to make the world a little better one kind act at a time.
Debbie was preceded in death by her father Frank, father in-law Jay Atwood, and uncles Ray and Jim Spalding.
She is survived by her husband Ron Atwood, mother Anna May Spalding and mother in-law Anna Mae Atwood, sisters Jodie (Jeff) Neumayer and Heidi (Bobby) Invernon, many uncles and aunts and 27 nieces and nephews.
The family suggests instead of flowers, that donations be made in Debbie's memory to Bonner Community Hospice, Bonners Ferry Cancer Group or Bonner General Celebration of Life.