Debbie Wieser, 73
Our beautiful and precious angel Debbie Wieser ascended into Heaven on March 27, 2022 after a courageous three-year battle with metastatic lung cancer.
Debbie Wieser was born on Feb. 8, 1949, in Butte, Mont., to Florence and Eddie Thomas. Eddie was a WWII veteran, and after taking several jobs to support his family, he started the Eddie Thomas Insurance Agency.
Debbie grew up in Butte, excelled in all her coursework, and was a varsity cheerleader. Her developmentally disabled sister, Kemera, was born when Debbie was 5, and Debbie actively participated in her development. It was while working with Kemera that Debbie took an interest in speech pathology. As a result of Debbie’s unending efforts, Kemera functions at a high level and is able to live independently today.
After graduating with honors in speech pathology and audiology from the University of Montana in Missoula, Debbie relocated to Southern California and started her 45-year long career in speech therapy at the Chino Unified School District.
Forty-one years ago, on July 4, she married the love of her life, John. They have shared many wonderful and loving years together, making many dear friends along the way. Her husband John adored her completely from the first time they met 43 years ago.
While she worked full-time as a speech therapist, she created and published several books and games to help the learning-disabled. Near the end of her career, Debbie was awarded the first ever “Speech Therapist of the Year” award by unanimous vote of her school district. She continued to work with students part time after her retirement. She retired to Coeur d’Alene with her husband in 2016.
Just a few years after arriving in Coeur d’Alene, Debbie met and formed a close friendship with Atsuko Kroetch. Atsuko designed and fabricated the stained glass windows for the Coeur d’Alene Carousel. Debbie offered her extensive talents to write accompanying stories and to create a contest for local fifth-graders to name the ponies depicted in the windows. She worked tirelessly for several months visiting every fifth-grade class to read the stories and collect their imaginative pony names for the contest. After the ballots for the names were cast, Debbie organized judges to select the final winning names. The winning names were announced at a celebration party held at Eagles Lodge downtown. Debbie also sponsored one of the stained glass windows at the carousel. Her window, “Flower of Grace”, reads “For the Teachers”.
Always physically active and athletic, Debbie enjoyed water skiing, snow skiing, and ice skating. She won second place in the Montana state gymnastics competition while in high school and spent one summer as a show skater in the Ice Capades. She had a gifted eye for fashion. She always wore bright colors even in winter and would always be seen wearing a scarf from her collection of over a hundred. She was one of those rare people who lit up any room when she entered.
Debbie is preceded in death by her parents Ed and Florence Thomas and is survived by her husband John, sister Kemera, and brother Fred, along with Fred’s wife Linda, their children and grandchildren, her sister in law, Jane, wonderful cousins, dear friends, and many lovely people who have helped care for her dear sister Kem, in Butte, Mont.
We want to acknowledge the outstanding care provided by Debbie’s doctors, Dr. Alex McKay, Dr. Sue Laing, Dr. Chad Scarola, Dr. Jeff Allen, and Dr. David Bartels as well as all the staff at the Kootenai Cancer Center and Schneidmiller Hospice House.
