Variety store owner loved downtown Marysville

Published 9:16 pm Saturday, December 29, 2007

Deebe Anderson put her heart where her business was, in downtown Marysville.

As owner and operator of Deebe’s Department and Variety Store for 25 years, she looked beyond her shop. Through civic involvement, she joined with other merchants to push for a thriving downtown as the city grew to the north.

“She had a love of the downtown section of Marysville,” said her husband, Norm Anderson, Marysville’s mayor from 1984 to 1988. “She was instrumental in getting a couple of streets rebuilt, Columbia Avenue, between Second and Fourth streets, and in getting more parking downtown.”

Anderson said his wife once was offered a large building for her store on the northern edge of town as the retail scene began to change. “She wanted to stay downtown,” he said.

In the 1970s, she served four years on the Marysville City Council, and once ran for mayor in the mid-1970s, said her son, John McInnis, of Marysville.

“She was a leader,” McInnis said. He remembers his mother being PTA president at Shoultes Elementary School, and how she was interested in politics at every level. “In retrospect, she was a pioneer for women. She was ahead of her time.”

Deebe L. Anderson died Dec. 18 in Henderson, Nev., where she lived with her husband of 35 years. She was 78. After retiring in 1988, the couple moved from Marysville to Rancho Mirage, Calif. They later moved to Nevada.

She also is survived by her son John McInnis; daughter Debbie Ball and her husband, Ron, of Marysville; sisters Gloria Cavanaugh of Kent and Billie Sahley of San Antonio, Texas; daughters-in-law Connie McInnis of Lake Stevens and Terrye McInnis of Mount Vernon; stepson Clint Anderson of Stanwood; seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

She was preceded in death by her parents, Minnie and George Merry; her sister Tillie Robinson; and her son Stephen McInnis.

“What I applaud Deebe for is her commitment. She had a commitment to her business and a commitment to the merchants in Marysville,” said Mary Kirkland, who owns Hilton’s Pharmacy on the corner of State Avenue and Third Street in downtown Marysville.

For years, their stores were intertwined. “It was kind of like an ‘L.’ The area between our store and the alley was part of her store, and the other leg of it was on Third Street,” Kirkland said.

John McInnis described how his mother’s store had two entrances, the variety side on State, with its candy counter and housewares, and the department store on Third, with women’s clothing and other goods.

“It was pretty much the heart of Marysville,” said Kirkland. “All the merchants were there. Most people came to the downtown area for their commerce until things started to move north. Deebe was certainly a spearhead for our merchant group.”

Along with Valda Bloom, who owned another department store, Kirkland said Deebe Anderson wanted to convert part of Third Street into a downtown pedestrian mall. “That was the precursor of our merchant group, Marysville Downtown Merchants. Their purpose was to preserve business downtown,” Kirkland said.

Genevieve Callas was a friend who had worked for Deebe Anderson both in her store and as a bookkeeper.

“She was very involved in the community. She belonged to the Chamber of Commerce. She was a very determined person and a very smart business person. And she worked every day at the store,” Callas said. “She knew right from wrong. I respected and thought well of her.”

Andrea McInnis, one of Anderson’s grandchildren, remembers her grandmother’s determination. She recalls Anderson telling her, “You just have to keep working toward whatever it is you really want in life.”

In eighth grade, Andrea had a school assignment to write about someone famous. “I had someone built-in,” she said, explaining that she chose her grandmother. At home, Andrea McInnis said, “things were done a certain way.”

“She had seven grandkids, and everybody had their own color of Easter eggs,” Andrea McInnis said.

Debbie Ball, Deebe Anderson’s daughter, said as a girl she looked forward to Thursdays, her mother’s day off from the store. “She was a very caring mom, but she worked a lot,” said Ball, a horseback rider who counts among her best childhood memories the Christmas her mother gave her a saddle.

John McInnis remembers that in 1969 or 1970, when he was in high school, he dressed up as Santa and came to the store with a cart and Shetland ponies. For a time, the store had a toy annex.

“She was a very astute businesswoman. She had all her ducks in a row,” Norm Anderson said.

After their move to California, she was involved in the Rotary of Cathedral City, serving as secretary-treasurer. With years of working behind her, Anderson said his wife enjoyed reading, swimming and having friends over for dinner.

“She made friends wherever she went,” he said.

Reporter Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlstein@heraldnet.com.