Debra “Deb” Carin (Waxman) Krinsky, who grew up in Chelsea, graduated from Chelsea High School in 1970 and taught fourth grade in the Chelsea Public Schools until kidney disease forced her to retire in 2017, died on August 23, 2026 at the UC Irvine Medical Center in California, where she had traveled for a family trip to Disneyland. She was 74 and lived in West Peabody.
She was born in Boston on February 8, 1952 to William and Doris (Baritz) Waxman. She earned an education degree from Boston State College in 1974 and a master’s in special education from Lesley, started teaching in Chelsea, and left after four years to raise her children. At Camp Menorah in Essex she had met Martin “Marty” Krinsky of Hyde Park; they married on June 2, 1974 and spent 52 years in West Peabody. She chaired the nursery school at Temple Ner Tamid, co-led the parent organization at Cohen Hillel Academy, substituted there, and then came back to Chelsea as a full-time fourth grade teacher. Her children’s friends called her Momma K.
She was diagnosed with kidney disease after her first child was born and went 15 years before needing treatment. A 1994 transplant lasted 23 years; a second came in 2019. Her family says the last 14 years were a run of medical problems she met without complaint.
She leaves her husband, Marty; her sons, Matt of Los Angeles and Jonathan and his wife De’Arna of Peabody; her daughter, Erica, and her husband David Mazza of Peabody; her brothers, Ronald Waxman of Seattle and Steven Waxman of Chelsea; and four grandchildren, Gemma and Wesley Krinsky and Lucas and Elias Mazza.
Funeral services were held August 31 at Temple Ner Tamid in Peabody, with burial at Maple Hill Cemetery. Arrangements were by the Goldman Funeral Chapel in Malden. The family suggests donations to the National Kidney Foundation or Temple Ner Tamid.
Compiled from information published by the funeral home. Photograph courtesy of the family via the funeral home. This is our own summary, not the family’s obituary; read the full obituary and leave a condolence at the funeral home’s page on Legacy.com. Corrections: we will fix any error promptly.