Deborah Heers McKnight

1935 - 2019

Deborah Heers McKnight

Washington, DC - Deborah Heers McKnight, née Deborah Winship Heers, a retired artisan of miniature ceramics, died September 24, 2019 at MedStar Washington Hospital Center in Washington DC. She was a resident in the Collington Lifecare Community in Mitchelleville, Maryland. She was 83. Deborah was born in Washington, D.C. in 1935 and grew up in Bethesda Maryland. Her mother, Jean Bratton Heers, née Jean Bratton, was born in Walla Walla Washington, and her father, William H. Heers was born in Sleepy Eye, Minnesota. Deborah attended schools in Maryland, graduating from Chevy Chase High School in 1953. She attended Washington College for two years and married Lee Graves McKnight at St. John's Church in Bethesda in 1955. She moved with Lee to Michigan and attended Eastern Michigan University and received her degree in special education in 1957. She taught special education in Michigan before and after moving to London, England for two years while her husband pursued a postdoctoral fellowship. In 1963 they settled in the Morristown New Jersey area, living on Featherleigh Road in Convent Station and later at 31 Hamilton Road in Morristown. In the early 1970s, Deborah took a ceramics course and after deciding that large ceramics were not her thing, she founded McKnight Miniatures and produced fine ceramic food, plates, bowls, pitchers and eventually entire sets of china at the 1-inch-to-a-foot scale. She later collaborated with her sister, Nancy Heers Warner and with Pricilla Lance in producing McKnight Miniatures. She was a fellow and charter member of the International Guild of Miniature Artisans (IGMA). Deborah taught her methods of producing miniatures on a potter's wheel at the IGMA's school at the Marine Maritime Academy in Castine, Maine. In 2007 she moved from New Jersey to Collington. Deborah was delighted by miniatures, music, bridge, art, movies and her family.

She is survived by two sons and their families: Jonathan A. McKnight, his wife Justine Woodard McKnight and their daughters Clara Christine and Lucy Elizabeth, formerly of Severna Park Maryland and now in West River, Maryland, and C. James McKnight, his wife Natalie Joy Brown McKnight and their daughters Emily Jo and Rebecca Anne of Milton Massachusetts. Deborah also leaves behind her sister, Nancy Elizabeth Heers Warner. Her husband of 63 years, Lee G. McKnight, died in 2017.

A memorial service will be held Saturday, November 30th at 2 pm in the Auditorium at Collington Lifecare Community, 10450 Lottsford Road, Mitchellville, MD 20721. A reception will follow the service. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be sent to the Collington Scholarship Fund http://collington.kendal.org/giving/