Debra Jean Crider, loving mother and sister, went home on June 17, 2024.
She was born in Manhattan in 1960 to the late Brenda “Iris” Crider and Richard Crider.
In the early 1960’s, Debra and her mother moved to California. They first settled in Los Angeles where Iris met Louise Merrill. Later the three of them moved to Oakland.
Debbie desperately wanted a sister and in 1968, when Debbie was 8 years old, Iris and Louise adopted 7-year-old Jody.
Debbie was a sweet person who befriended anyone. She was always saying hello to the people she would meet on her walks here and there.
Like her late mother Iris, she was also an artist. She especially loved embroidery, sometimes spending over a month creating a single beautiful piece. And she would give them away to the people she loved or to anyone who would admire them. Debra was a resident of the Harriet Tubman Terrace Apartments in Berkeley.
Debra leaves to cherish her memory her son, Kharl V. Stuart, her sister Jody Rivera, of Berkeley, California, aunt and uncle Cheryl and Joe Goldwater of Garland, Texas, Lurleen Billingslea of Berkeley, California, Bonnie McGregor of McKinleyville, California, and several cousins.
We love you and we will miss you.
A memorial service was held on Friday, June 28 at Highland Baptist Church, Hayward, CA.
Jody Rivera shared a letter she wrote to her sister, Debbie Crider, after Crider died last month. Rivera read the letter at Crider’s memorial.
Dear Debbie,
When I first met you I was so scared that you would look at me funny; so many people had.
I was 7 years old, of an unknown race and walked with a pretty bad limp. I had been abandoned by my biological family, lived in a hospital and then a foster home, but none of that mattered to you, and never would. You stood in front of me with the sweetest little girl face and the biggest smile and said, “I’m Debbie, and you’re my new sister.” And that’s how we began our lives together in June of 1968.
I think back now and feel happy at what you gave me, someone to finally be free with, to run and play with, someone to tell secrets to, to giggle with. Everything was yours because I came with nothing, but you shared everything of yours with me. You took me to the cool places on and around the block, and taught me about sour grass.
I remember we pulled them out of the ground and you told me to chew the stem and not the yellow flower, and how our faces scrunched up and our eyes squinted as the tart juice seeped into our mouths, you taught me how to pick a honeysuckle flower and how to suck the honey out. We slept on mattresses on the floor two feet from each other and had to be told time and time again to go to sleep.
And as time went on we fought like cats and dogs (as some sisters do) and in between the fights you taught me about music, and your love for Michael Jackson. We listened to the radio together, and sang along with the music of the Supremes, the Temptations, Al Green and Marvin Gaye.
When there was a TV in the house we watched Soul Train and practiced the groovy dances together.
Sometimes we’d go up to Telegraph Ave to listen to the drums. The sounds made our heads bob and our fingers snap. The sun was always shining on those days.
Then we got older and went our separate ways (as some sisters do). You had your son Kharl, I moved to San Francisco, and we saw each other less and less. But we were still sisters.
And now my mind goes back again to how sweet you were when we were little kids, how people would look at us funny, these two little girls, one white one brown, one who walked with a pretty bad limp and how you would put your arm around me and proudly say
“This is my sister.”
Thank you Debbie for that and more,
Jody