My Mom Died early this morning.

In Memorium Deborah Sue (Ivey) Dyer 24 December 1950—25 March 2010May She Rest In Peace. Deborah (Debi to friends, family and colleagues), was the daughter of James and Betty Ivey, wife to Jim Dyer, mother to James and Stephanie Dyer, and grandmother to Jaime Dyer and Cole Prescot. She also mothered her children's friends, and her house was a welcoming one in Santa Barbara's Mission Canyon neighborhood for years. Debi started her family young and became an exemplary homemaker while still in her early twenties. She was a beautiful woman, a good friend, a great cook, a soccer mom, and a regular volunteer at the schools her children attended as well as enjoying the outdoors and fully participating in the design and construction of the house she would call home for more than thirty years.

When her husband was injured and medically retired from the Santa Barbara Fire Department, she went back to work to support the family during his long recovery. Starting as a bookkeeper with the Community Housing Corporation of Santa Barbara she rapidly rose to a prominent management position. CHC found out, as her children already knew, that if you wanted to get a difficult job done Debi was exactly the woman to put in charge of it. Later she spent more than ten years sailing with her husband Jim, first aboard the Neried along the Pacific Coast of California and down into Mexico, and then aboard Mah Jong from Maine to the Carribean. She was a voracious reader who tought her children to love books and learning at a young age and an accomplished amature photographer; she could also steer a boat into a gale, make fabulous crème broulee, and track down the best price on airfare to anywhere on earth with equal facility and grace.  

Debi died peacefully at Cottage Hospital's Critical Care Unit at approximately 2:15am, Thursday, March 25th 2010, after a brief illness. She is survived by her father, husband, two brothers, two children, two grandchildren, and a plethora of other relatives and friends. She will be sorely missed by all of us who loved her, and we wish that she had been given more time here with us before being called away.