Deborah Ellen Friend

Deborah Ellen Friend (b.1951) died peacefully on Saturday November 1, 2025, in Hanover, NH at age 74. She leaves her loyal siblings Sheara, Lisa (m. Giuseppe Contaldo) and David Friend (p.m. Wendi Friend) and nieces and nephews (Benjamin and Noah Burkholz, Daniel and Giulia Contaldo, Sophie and Eliza Friend), her Aunt Marilyn York and her best friend from childhood until the end, Carolyn Marks Blackwood.

Her parents Channa and Solomon Friend and her beloved brother- in- law Mark Burkholz, are deceased.

Debbie grew up in Great Neck N.Y. and while attending high school, also attended Manhattan School of Music, studying piano, composition and flute. During her college years, Debbie studied in France and at Dartmouth College and graduated with a BA in music from Wheaton College, Mass. in 1972 and later completed her Masters in Music Education from Hofstra University and was a certified public school music teacher.

After college, she moved back to Great Neck, where she lived until 2018, teaching piano to many young children for over 45 years in her private studio on Long Island, and where she also composed songs and gave occasional concerts at Temple Emanuel.

Debbie spent the last few years in a protected small community in Vermont just a few miles from her beloved lakes, mountains and streams of her childhood summers at Camp Walt Whitman. Until shortly before her passing, Debbie composed and wrote poetry from her first moments awakening until she went to bed, forever searching for a song that would " be a hit".

Donations in Debbie's honor can be made to: https://averte.com/donate/ ,Averte of Vermont (aka Merry Meadow Farm) a Trivium community. For information, please contact her sisters: lisabfriend@gmail.com and Shearafriend@gmail.com.

A graveside service is planned for November 23, 2025 at 1:00pm at the New Montefiore Cemetery in West Babylon, NY.