Cover photo for Deborah L. "Debbie" Kehne's Obituary
Deborah L. "Debbie" Kehne Profile Photo
1956 Deborah 2023

Deborah L. "Debbie" Kehne

April 25, 1956 — August 18, 2023

Northampton, MA – Debbie Kehne, age 67, of Florence, MA died on August 18, 2023 at Cooley Dickinson Hospital from complications of lobular breast cancer with metastases to the bones. The oldest of four children, she was born on April 25, 1956 in Baltimore, Maryland to Bruce Kehne and Elizabeth (“Betts”) (Rohde) Kehne.

Raised in the suburbs of the Baltimore/Washington area, she was a graduate of Wilde Lake High School in Columbia, Maryland. During her high school years she found her passion for the French language and for playing classical guitar. In her single year at Coker College in South Carolina, she found her love of drawing and, because it was illegal at the time, secretly became the artists’ model for the college drawing class. Her modeling career continued for many years thereafter as a way to pay for art classes at the institutions she modeled for.

Following college, during her two years in Putney, Vermont, she had a state-inspected kitchen where she made bread for local salad bars and the Co-op, and baked challah that flew off the table at the Friday Farmer’s Market. Her blueberry pies were legendary.

Realizing she needed to finish her education, she moved to Western Massachusetts and went to UMass/Amherst. She graduated summa cum laude with degrees in both Human Services and Psychology. During those years she was a home health aide serving elders who wished to remain at home in Hampshire County. She became very close with some of her clients, loving to learn about their lives. She was also a nurses’ aide in local nursing homes.

Following graduation, she began a job at the Research Group in Northampton, a local market research firm, working her way up to be a telephone interviewer, and eventually up to leadership roles. In an effort to expand the services of the company, she earned an Associate’s Degree in Geographical Information Systems from HCC. She lived in New Hampshire and had a brief stint in marketing research for an HMO there. She also worked in process improvement for Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. While there, she met jeweler Diana Ruggles and developed a love of gold and silver jewelry making that continued for the rest of her life.

If Debbie had any calling in life, it was to be a mother. In 1997 she joyfully welcomed her daughter Kathryn into the world. Knowing her career would need to change, she returned to UMass/Amherst and was accepted into the second Bachelor’s degree in Nursing program at UMass. As an R.N., she spent ten years doing in-patient care at Baystate, three more at Cooley Dickinson, and then moved to her dream job at the Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care outpatient practice in Florence.

First and foremost, Debbie was an artist in all that she did. She was an instrumentalist, singer, seamstress, knitter, cook and baker, jeweler, and gardener. She said her misspent youth was not misspent, but gave her some of the best adventures of her life. Debbie believed in moderation in all things except good food and wine, beautiful fabric, dahlias, and magnificent gems and minerals. Her lifelong love of choral singing began at age 5 and took her to the Berkshire Choral Summer Programs in Sheffield, the Da Camera Singers for over 40 years, the choir at the Unitarian Church in Northampton, and finally the Hampshire Choral Society. She loved gardening and could never plant in straight rows – there were just areas of plants that needed to be where they were. Her love of dahlias led to digging out a huge garden in the backyard and planting 60 bulbs each spring. She dreamed of having a dahlia stand by the road in front of the house called “Debbie Does Dahlias”. She could not follow the plots of Disney movies and had a totally irreverent sense of humor. Her bravery manifested in her being part of the first Pride march in Northampton, and in the remarkable ways she faced the limitations of her illness. Her ability to read a room was amazing, and she used this skill to share her generous heart, humor and intelligence with everyone she met, whether stranger, patient, friend or family.

She is survived by her wife, Justina Golden, her daughter Kathryn Kehne (Brooklyn, NY), her father, Bruce Kehne (Northampton), her brothers Jeffrey Kehne (Ann Arbor, MI) and Stephen Kehne (Joppa, MD), and her sister Jennifer Lipman (Brookline, MA), two nieces, two nephews and a great niece. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to MANNA Soup Kitchen Inc., Northampton.

There will be a hymn sing at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Northampton and Florence to honor her life on Saturday September 23, 2023 at 2:00PM with a reception to Follow.
To order memorial trees or send flowers to the family in memory of Deborah L. "Debbie" Kehne, please visit our flower store.

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Hymn Sing

Saturday, September 23, 2023

Starts at 2:00 pm

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Unitarian Universalist Church of Northampton and Florence

220 Main Street, Northampton, MA 01060

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