Obituaries
Deborah Rose Nye
1952-June 25, 2016
On June 25, 2016, Deborah Rose Nye of the Olday Road at McNeil Canyon suddenly died.
A celebration of Deborah’s Life will be held at the family home, 36975 Maria Court, at 2 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 4, 2016. Please bring a memory and dish to share and flowers. Deborah loved flowers.
Deborah was the first baby born in the new year of 1952 at the Canandaigua, N.Y., hospital. She grew up Deborah Schuyler at Naples in the Finger Lakes region of New York. In 1976 she met her future husband, Willy, down on the Seneca Reservation at Salamanca, N.Y.
The next year she and son Aubrey followed Willy and his dream to a small village on Kodiak Island. It was there second son Zachar was born at the beach house she called home at the time. Then it was on to Homer where they wintered in Wilson’s 16-foot-by-24-foot homestead log cabin, the site of their future long-time permanent home.
In search of new adventure she and the two boys followed Willy to Fairbanks, where they stayed, while Willy cooked at Deadhorse. J.Maitland was born that summer in the rented dome she found overlooking the big city from above Farmer’s Loop Road. On Sept. 19, 1981, during a weeklong vacation at Barrow, Alaska, Deborah married Willy with friends and three sons attending. Soon after the wedding, the family traveled to Seward where they boarded the ferry, “Trusty Tusty,” and sailed to Kodiak City. The young family was growing, the king crab boom was over, other fisheries were faltering and it wasn’t long before a final move happened — back to Homer, where Gedediah also was born at home.
After Ged came along, Deborah planted her feet and refused to move again. She and Willy purchased and operated the old Willow Wind restaurant on Ocean Drive until 1986, when Willy built her the dome house on the old Wilson homestead that Deborah enjoyed until her dying day. After the boys were settled into elementary school, Deborah rejoined the work force in the service industry. Over the years in Homer and Valdez she was the “surly” breakfast waitress that didn’t drink coffee. She worked at most all of them: Land’s End, Best Western, Oscar’s, and Fat Olive’s. She was the bar manager who brought Hobo Jim to the Beluga, pizza delivery to Fat Rack and kept Willy’s charter boat clean and full of people. She did it all to help pay the bills.
By 2010 Deborah had settled into semi-retirement, tending her beloved gardens and fishing with Willy.
For her birthday in 2013, her husband bought her another job: The big yellow EAT truck. Deborah loved taking her skills on the road, hitting Salmonfest, the Ninilchik State Fair, and the Kenai River Festival. Deborah lived her life at full throttle, never using the brakes. She was a catcher of fish, and an extraordinarily good cook and entertainer. Most of all, Deborah loved all her boys and her husband and the joy they gave her. She is missed by all she worked with and knew through the years.
Deborah is survived by her husband of all those years, Willy of Homer; sons, Aubrey Moses of Bellingham, Wash.,, Zachar, J.Maitland, and Gedediah, all of Homer; grandsons, Bodhi Daniel of Homer, Asher and Orion Moses of Bellingham; granddaughters, Bella Marette of Minnetonka, Minn.; Saylor Moses of Bellingham,; daughter-in-law Emily Chalup of Homer; mother, Martha Schuyler of Lakeland, Fla., and brother, Steve Schuyler, of Lone Tree, Colo.
