Local Author- Debra Runge Meder

The daughter of Cassadaga, NY dairy farmers, she learned a life lesson as a young child by way of an unexpected tragedy that struck her family.  The lesson is this:  the most valuable thing we leave behind for those we love is precious memories. It is a mantra by which she lives her life.

In her book, The Front Porch Promise, she tells the true breathtaking story about her life and her ability to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

Following the tragic loss of her parents at just nine years old, she and her older siblings were torn apart. With her older sisters departing on different paths, she and her five-year-old brother were taken from the only life they had ever known—a rural dairy farm—and moved to the busy metropolis of Buffalo, New York, a city seventy-five miles away. Being forced to reside with their maternal aunt in a tiny five-room flat in the heart of the city, every aspect of their lives had changed. Stripped of confidence, trust, and childhood innocence, the author was forced to embark on an against-all-odds journey of growth and survival. Despite all of the challenges, extraordinary circumstances happened to her in 2016, fifty-five years after the death of her parents. It was then she witnessed the miracle of unexpected healing, restoration and redemption. What happened demonstrated that what she had come to view as the end, God saw as only the beginning.

Debby is defined by those who know her as an exceptional storyteller with an amazing ability to make written words penetrate the hearts of her readers.  In her book, she will move her readers through a myriad of emotions as she shares her life’s journey. The reader will feel anger, joy, sorrow, happiness as they laugh and cry throughout the pages of the book. In the end, she fills her readers with a sense of hope that the impossible can indeed become possible.

Debby enjoyed a life-long career as both a paralegal and a human resource director. She lives in Chautauqua County with her husband of 36 years and her 10-year-old Belgian Malinois dog named Stormy who keeps her young.