ROBIN TREADWAY – NURSE AND AUTHOR

Having spent much of her life in Globe and Miami, caring for the sick and elderly as an RN, Robin had a powerful affinity for the people and the area that lent itself well when later in life she became involved in writing a book that would feature those very places.

Robin Deann Treadway was born in San Antonio, Texas, in 1959. She was the daughter of LaVerna (nee Arnold), a nurse, and William Rockus Treadway III, a fabricator. The family soon moved to Moss Bluff, Louisiana, where Robin always had fond memories of a childhood spent playing in the nearby swamps. She was always something of a tomboy, always game for any adventure.

At the age of 11, Robin and her family moved again. This time it was to Arizona, the birthplace of her Mother, where they settled in Globe. Living on Ice House Canyon Road, Robin quickly took to the Western lifestyle, riding horses and raising steers. She was a member of the High School Choir, and after after graduating, tried her hand as a professional singer in the local bars and at weddings. Her first performance was at the iconic Drift Inn on Broad Street. Alongside this, she supported herself through a number of other jobs, a cook at a bowling alley cafe and various retail positions, before finally deciding to follow in her Mother’s footsteps and pursue a career in nursing.

So, from 1993-1997, Robin studied at Central Arizona College in Coolidge, and proudly graduated as an RN. Her first job was with Banner Home Care. She always had a natural understanding and empathy for the less fortunate and elderly, and spent much of her ensuing career caring for such patients. She was only two years out of nursing college when we first met in 1999, and was then living on Latham Boulevard in Miami. As I ran my own web design business, I had the freedom to hang-out with Robin and experience much of what she did in her professional life. I remember the times she would drive out to see patients on the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation. It was not always the safest journey after dark, but Robin put her faith in God and took it all in her stride. One night, I remember her visiting a little old lady out in a remote canyon and getting trapped in her car by a marauding herd of javelinas. We laughed and joked until they eventually went on their way. Her travels often took us through what she called “Our Canyon” by the Queen Creek Tunnel. At night, there was always a little star that shone the brightest that she equated with the two of us. My business at the time by strange chance was called Desert Star Web Design. Robin went on to also work for Centrum Home Care and local memory care facility Copper Mountain Inn.

While she was at her best caring for the old and vulnerable, Robin’s work would sometimes take her into quite illustrious circles, attending to the families of such people as Stevie Nicks (Fleetwood Mac), and movie star Chuck Norris.

Over the years, Robin’s own family grew as her children from an early and failed marriage delivered a series of five grandkids.

In 2011, a tragic event took place that took from Robin two of her most precious possessions, her nursing career and her singing voice. An unsatisfactory medical procedure left her with damage to her vocal chords and suffering from acute Neuropathy.

Around that time I had developed several online stores, and with her nursing career effectively over, Robin became my partner in business, too. One of our stores involved selling spectacles to followers of the Steampunk and Goth lifestyles. As a big fan of Gothic/Vampire fiction, Robin was in her element years later when together we visited Whitby in England, the birthplace of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

In the years that followed, Robin returned to a passion of her youth, writing. While she had her own literary projects, such as Jayne, Counting Stars, and The Girl, she had always said that we should write a book based around the dramatic events that unfolded in our lives in 2004. She began a dedicated campaign to encourage me as a onetime writer also to do so. Eventually, I agreed, and we began work on the book that would feature Globe and Miami among its locations. On a more personal note, the two of us were finally due to be married and relocate to Globe before the pandemic interrupted our plans. Sadly, Robin passed away on November 18, 2020, once again as a consequence of another medical procedure. The book is continuing to be written, and I will keep everyone updated through The Gazette of its progress and publication.

I will leave the last words to Robin’s lifelong friend in Globe, Cathy Colter. “Robin was the kind of friend that everyone should have”

Robin Keen