A death in work family hits hard

Debra Davis Stanley died Thursday. She was 55. Cancer got her. She leaves a husband, a 15-year-old son and a newsroom filled with grief.

Debra began working at the American-Statesman in 1989. In all those years, her name appeared in the paper just a handful of times. But her impact and talent was in the paper on almost a daily basis.

Debra was an editor, a good one. It’s a job some folks might consider to be behind the scenes. Truth is, newspaper people like Debra create the scenes.

Like many folks at this paper, Debra’s career included a variety of assignments. At various times, she edited local, state and national coverage. Most recently, her bailiwick included the Sunday Insight section and the investigative team.

At various times over the years, she was my editor, including most recently for my Sunday columns on the front of the Insight section. As it happens, despite periodic musical chairs in the newsroom, I often sat near Debra. As I write this, if I gaze up over my computer screen, I look directly at her now-empty chair, which distressingly faces me about 12 feet away.

Perhaps not unlike your workplace, putting out a daily newspaper puts folks in close contact, sometimes under stress. Friendships develop. Sometimes it’s more than friendship. Debra met her husband, former reporter Dick Stanley, at the paper.

Through Debra, I’ve followed their son Jack’s progress (and often overheard her on the phone making the kinds of calls moms make). Most recently we commiserated about the adventures of having a kid in high school. And having endured my stories about my kids as they were growing up, she enjoyed seeing photos

of my granddaughter, photos that for us marked the passage of time.

Debra also was a receptive, appreciative audience for low-brow humor, which made her a frequent first stop as I’d wander the newsroom to try out material. It was fun — and easy — to make her laugh.

In a newspaper universe with its fair share of oddballs and out-sized personalities, Debra was a constant, calming presence.

She edited the right way, by cool collaboration. And she did so in the face of occasional higher-temperature feedback from the other side. I’m not sure when or how it happened, but something of a tradition developed in which when Debra properly did her job, by pushing us about how we did ours, we referred to her as “the Davis woman.”

When told by a colleague that “the Davis woman” was looking for you, it meant stand by for good questions about your story, questions often asked from the viewpoint of the newspaper reader. Sounds simple, but it’s a real and specific skill, one Debra exhibited on a daily basis.

As she battled cancer, many of us in at the paper took turns bringing meals for her family. She was always warm and pleasant in the face of adversity. And pain and problems aside, she remained willing to listen to and laugh

There is so much to celebrate about Debra, so much to grieve.

at bad jokes.

Debra’s job was to make this a better newspaper for our readers. She did so in many ways, mostly anonymously to those readers. In a rare bylined story back in 2003, Debra summed up input from readers who participated in the newspaper’s online simulation of writing the state budget.

“You saw. You played. You shared,” she wrote in beginning the story with the economic use of words that good editors prefer.

In a 2001 review of a kids book, she wrote, with a mother’s touch and understanding: “In the imagination of a young boy, toy trucks and machines become real tools that help him show his mother how much he loves her. He plows snow, waters the garden and plants a forest just for her.”

The journalist who sought no attention for herself during her life in newspapers requested no funeral after her death. Instead, there will be a celebration of her life.

There is much to celebrate about Debra, which is why there is so much to grieve.