Mrs. Deborah Ridlon Culbertson

Deborah Ridlon Culbertson (August 4, 1940 – August 28, 2024) was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana to Emory Francis Ridlon, a Dupont Company Executive and Violet (nee Bare) Ridlon, a homemaker. Her childhood was spent in Louisiana, Kentucky, Ohio, and Delaware. She attended Denison University where she was a member of Delta Gamma Sorority graduating in 1962 with a bachelor's degree in English. After graduation she moved to Boston, Massachusetts, to attend the Katherine Gibbs Secretarial School and through a friend met her future husband, Thomas Leon Culbertson, a seminarian at The Episcopal Divinity School. They were married in 1966 and moved to Ohio when Tom was called to serve a church in Toledo. Their daughter Meghan was born in 1968, followed by daughter Eliza in 1971. After moving to Cleveland, Ohio, Deborah joined the Junior League and bred Siamese cats while completing her master’s degree in counseling from John Carroll University. In the late 1970s, she began work outside the home at Resource, Inc., an organization dedicated to helping women get into the workforce. Upon a move to Lynchburg, Virginia, she became a career counselor at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College where she was asked to develop and direct a program for adult women looking to complete their bachelor's degree. That experience led to her position as the director of a similar program upon the family move to Baltimore in 1985 when her husband was called as Rector of Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Baltimore City. At Goucher College, Debbie directed the Goucher II program and developed both certificate and professional programs that expanded the colleges’ non-traditional offerings and public profile. She will be remembered for her love of finding a good deal, of time at the beach, of a career spent helping others with theirs, of “anamules,” and for her irreverent sense of humor. Most of all she will be remembered for her love of her daughters, her absolute joy of being Mummum to four grandsons, and for her deep commitment to and love for her husband. She is survived by her husband of fifty-eight years, her daughters, her sons-in-law, Adam Mekler and Arryn Milne, and her grandchildren, Lukas and Griffin Mekler-Culbertson and Asher and Fynn Milne. In lieu of flowers, gifts in her memory may be sent to Blakehurst c/o Blakehurst Resident Scholarship Foundation, 1055 W Joppa Rd, Towson, MD 21204 or the Maryland SPCA, https://www.mdspca.org/. On September 28, 2024 at 1:30 p.m. a memorial service will be held at St. James Episcopal Church, Monkton.

Mrs. Deborah Ridlon Culbertson

August 4, 1940 - August 28, 2024