Debbie Ruth Cavanaugh Brooks, age 61, a Montana girl who made friends everywhere she lived, passed away on October 15, 2023 after a six-year battle with ovarian cancer. She was surrounded by her loving family in her final days and friends called and travelled from near and far to say their goodbyes. Debbie was a mother, wife, daughter, sister, cousin, niece, aunt, coworker, and friend. She excelled in all these roles. Her smile and humor were irresistible and contagious. You know you are loved when a friend you have not seen in 15 years drives 18 hours round trip to spend an hour with you near the end of your life. Debbie was loved.
Debbie was born in 1962, the youngest child of Thomas “Swede” and Audrey Cavanaugh. She grew up in Walkerville, Montana, just north of Butte on the west side of the Rocky Mountain Continental Divide. Her dad was a Navy veteran, and postal worker. Her mom worked for the local schools. Debbie graduated from Butte Central High School in 1980 and then received vocational training in medical transcribing at Butte Vo Tech. She worked for several years in the medical office of Dr. Dan Cauble in Butte. Her and her family are fixtures in the Irish and
Lebanese communities in the historic copper mining community of Butte. In 1985 she met Michael Brooks, a rookie FBI agent, and they married the next year in Butte. Their first home was in Twin Falls, Idaho where she worked at the Twin Falls Hospital. They moved to Matawan, New Jersey in 1988. At first Debbie worked at Rahway Hospital. Then Debbie and Mike had two children – Matthew Thomas, born in 1990, and Lauren Virginia, born in 1993. They lived in Fredericksburg, Virginia from 1996 to 2004 and then moved to Loveland, Ohio where Debbie lived the rest of her life. Debbie’s children were her life. She was fortunate to be able to stay with them at home. Every summer the trio of Debbie, Matt and Lauren would make a monthlong trek to Butte to spend time with their family and friends in the Big Sky Country. In all three towns where they lived Debbie regularly welcomed her children’s friends into her home. Many of them still refer to her as their second mom and at least five travelled to see her before she passed.
In 2007 she began a 16-year career working at the Kyle Veterinary Hospital in Cincinnati after telling the owner, Dr. Sheri Kyle, that she would love to work there. She loved animals and the job, from cleaning kennels in the beginning to working the front desk and managing billing later, was an absolute joy for her. It brought her comfort during her fight with cancer as Dr. Kyle always told her to feel free to come to work when she could but not to worry if she could not.
Debbie refused to allow her illness to define her. Her husband, children, family, and friends sustained her through six surgeries and four full series of six chemotherapy treatments. Lauren kept encouraging Debbie to “move mountains” every time the cancer recurred. Matt shaved his head in solidarity with his mother during her first round of chemotherapy. She lost her hair and the drugs sapped her energy but she never lost her smile or her laugh. Last Christmas her oncology provider featured Debbie on their website as an inspiration to others facing cancer.
Debbie was pre-deceased by her mother, father and father-in-law Thomas Brooks; her uncle Dr. Donald George, who took on the role of her father after her father’s death when Debbie was 17; and by her two beloved doodles, Cooper and Sammy. She is survived by Mike, her husband of 37 years; her son Matt Brooks; daughter Lauren Brooks; sisters Sharon Swendseid (Jim) and Mary Lou Faulkner (Dan); brother Michael “Mick” Cavanaugh; mother-in-law Barbara Brooks; brother-in-law Dean Brooks; sisters-in-law Mary Virginia Brooks, Cathy Pennell and Jennifer Shelton (Shawn); nieces Megan Kreuscher (Phil), Rebecca Faulkner, Anna Leigh Rogers (Jake) and Jillian Shelton; as well as a hoard of aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws and friends at every location she lived.
Debbie’s family would like to express their eternal gratitude to all the health care providers who fought with Debbie. We cannot name them all but we are particularly grateful to Dr. Ajit Gubbi and Dr. Cynthia Chua. Drs. Gubbi and Chua always treated Debbie with the utmost kindness and spent hours explaining her treatment and answering questions. They became close friends.
In lieu of flowers the family requests donations in Debbie’s honor to St. Jude’s Hospital, the Ovarian Cancer Research Association, or Hospice of Cincinnati.
A celebration of Debbie’s life will be conducted at 3 pm on Sunday October 29, 2023 at Fares J. Radel Funeral Home, 5950 Kellogg Ave., Cincinnati, Ohio. There will be a visitation period beginning at 1:00 pm that same date. There will be another celebration of life as well as an internment in Butte later.
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