Rebecca Alyn Bixby

The family of Rebecca Alyn Bixby shares that she died March 27, 2026, after a tenacious four year journey with metastatic colon cancer.

Born in Abington, PA, on August 12, 1981, Rebecca leaves her beloved daughter Adeline Suvi Forrest (age 10), her two sisters Katherine M. Bixby and her wife Gabrielle Guynan, and Kelly A Bixby and her husband Brandon Motz, along with her parents Sandra Baur Bixby and H. William Bixby.

Rebecca is also survived by Adeline’s father Tuomi Forrest and his two adult daughters, Lillian and Eleanor Forrest.

Rebecca will be mourned and indelibly remembered by nine aunts and uncles, sixteen first cousins, and a large extended family. She will also be gratefully remembered by fellow students and faculty, neighbors, friends, colleagues, as well as patients and their families in the several communities in which she lived and compassionately served.

Always venturing, Rebecca led a life committed to world mending in her primary vocation as a nurse practitioner and immigrant health advocate, and in her gentle and generous personal life.

Following graduation from Germantown Friends School in 1999, and then majoring in Latino/a Studies and Rural Sociology (magna cum laude) at Cornell University, Rebecca worked across fifteen years in Philadelphia, Mexico and Chile in settings focused on indigenous and immigrant health among Spanish-speaking populations. Pursuing nursing degrees (BSN, MSN) at Penn, she participated in an innovative neighborhood health cooperative in South Philadelphia called Puentes de Salud or Bridges of Health. From 2010 to 2012, she served as clinical director/educator in a program for young adult nursing students in Monterrey, Mexico. Returning to Philadelphia, she worked in a Kennett Square social services and health care hub, La Comunidad Hispana, founded in 1973 primarily to address the needs and distinctive cultures of workers in the mushroom industry.

From 2016 to 2021, Rebecca led in multiple roles at the Family Practice & Counseling Network (FPCN, now FPCSN), a nurse-managed regional health care provider for more vulnerable populations in Philadelphia. In fall of 2021, Rebecca accepted a position as school nurse at her alma mater Germantown Friends School - just as Adeline began kindergarten there. Embodying the school’s vision of “...creating a campus and extended community that models and exemplifies a world in which we want to live,” her circle was completed among good Friends and dear colleagues.

Two services of rich, communal remembering and entrusting Rebecca to God will be held on Saturday, May 2 and Sunday May 3, in Philadelphia. All are welcome to take part in either or both of these gatherings.

Saturday, May 2 Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Philadelphia, PA

8:30 am Visitation and Viewing, Parish Hall + Houston Room

8:30 am Light Breakfast/Fellowship, Parish Hall

10:00 am Service of Resurrection Hope, Worship Space

11:15 am Car Procession to Ivy Hill Cemetery, Committal

(A gathering for extended family only will follow the Committal.)

Sunday, May 3 Germantown Friends Meeting and School, Philadelphia, PA

3:00 pm Memorial Service and Friends Meeting for Worship, Meeting House

4:30 pm Reception, Ample Refreshments, All School Commons

(Both settings will have provision for child care.)

In lieu of flowers, the family kindly welcomes memorial gifts to Germantown Friends School (mail checks to Germantown Friends School, Advancement Office, 31 W. Coulter Street, Philadelphia, PA 19144; please specify “IMO Rebecca Bixby”) or to the Colorectal Cancer Alliance (1156 15th St. NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20005; also “IMO Rebecca Bixby”).