Dr. Deborah Coggins

Northport Funeral & Cremation Service family extends our warmest condolences and heartfelt sympathies to the family of Dr. Deborah Coggins. Dr. Coggins passed away on Thursday, March 13, 2025, in Northport, AL.

Dr. Deborah Reed Coggins, age 100, of Tuscaloosa, died Mar. 13, 2025, at Hospice of West Alabama in Tuscaloosa surrounded by her loving family. She was a woman ahead of her time. Dr. Coggins was born April 28, 1924, in Tampa, Florida to Olive Ferne Adams Reed and Ernest Victor Reed. After graduating from the University of Washington (1944), she served in the Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) during WW II at the rank of PhM2c, working as a lab technician and receiving a Meritorious Mast and commendation for work in penicillin research. She earned her medical degree from Duke University, graduating in a class with only 6 women (of 64 students) in 1951. After an internship in internal medicine at Georgetown University Hospital (1951) and a residency in psychiatry at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C. (1953), she and her husband, Dr. Wilmer Jesse Coggins Jr., returned to Florida to begin a private practice, first in Boca Grande (1953-1956), and then in Wilmer’s hometown of Madison (1956-1959). The family's years in Madison are chronicled in a memoir, “The Coggins Affair” (2005). The book is a testament to Deborah’s courage following her dismissal from her position as Director of the Tri-County Health Department (Madison, Jefferson, and Taylor Counties) for holding a lunch meeting with an African American nurse who was helping lead a program to promote hygienic midwifery in the region. Deborah left Madison in 1959, moving to Gainesville, where she completed a residency in psychiatry in 1961. From 1961 to 1981, she served as a professor of psychiatry at the University of Florida Teaching Hospital, and served as Attending Psychiatrist and Chief of the Psychiatric Inpatient Unit. From 1969-1981, she ran a highly successful private practice in psychiatry, serving clients from Alachua County and the greater North Florida Region. From 1981-1987, she served as a professor of Psychiatry in the College of Community Health Sciences at the University of Alabama School of Medicine. From 1987-1990 she was a Staff Physician for Bryce Hospital, in Tuscaloosa. Dr. Coggins was active in the American Psychiatric Association and the Florida Psychiatric Society, serving on numerous committees at the University of Florida and the University of Alabama, as well as in associations in Gainesville and Tuscaloosa. She published many articles and made a number of presentations on the treatment of acute and chronic mental illness in both psychiatric and family health settings, the training of mental healthcare practitioners, and the effects of sex role ideology in the treatment of mental illness. Her professional work took her around the world, including trips to the Soviet Union, China, and the South Pacific. Known by her friends as Deborah, and by her children and grandchildren as Nonna, she will be remembered for her love of the outdoors, especially her passion for natural history, boating, and bird watching. She and her family designed and built a cabin on the banks of the Suwannee River in Florida, where they hosted numerous visitors and friends over many a weekend in the 1960s and 1970s. In later years she and her family explored the waterways in and around Florida’s Homosassa River as well as Lake Tuscaloosa. To spend the day in a boat with Nonna and Grandaddy was to get away from the humdrum world and to enter a realm of wild wonder. We are proud to have lived with a woman who served her community and the world with quiet passion, who understood the times in which she lived, and worked accordingly, and who always found time to have lots of fun with her family. Most of all, we will remember Deborah for her unlimited capacity to listen to her family, friends, and clients, and to respond to all with love, wisdom, and compassion.

Deborah is survived by her four children, Pamela (Gill) Minor of Wilmington, N.C.; Deborah Coggins Clark of Tuscaloosa; Audrey Coggins Hyson (Chris) of Lake Placid, N.Y.; Christopher Reed Coggins (Tanya Kalischer) of Lenox, MA; her daughter-in-law, Julia Womack Coggins of Coos Bay, OR; eight grandchildren, Jesse (Rebecca) Minor, Olive Minor (Ido Magal), Michael Clark, Ambrose Clark, Peter Hyson (Kelly Collier), Rose Hyson (Kyle Crawford), Aaron Kalischer-Coggins (Megan Monteleone), Noah Kalischer-Coggins; and six great-grandchildren.

She is predeceased by her husband of 63 years, Wilmer Jesse Coggins Jr., her son Wilmer Jesse Coggins III, and her ex-son-in-law, Stephen Clark.

Deborah’s family would like to thank the staff of the Crimson Village Memory Care unit for their kind and thoughtful care for Deborah near the end of her life. We are especially grateful to Vivian Sanya, who went far beyond the call of duty as a home care provider for Home Instead and Right at Home. Vivian worked side-by-side with Deborah over the course of several years, in a spirit of kindest care and loving patience. In lieu of flowers or other gifts to the family, please make donations to The Nature Conservancy.

Compassionate, sympathetic, and professional service has been entrusted to the hands and care of the Northport Funeral & Cremation Service Professional Team.