“Slept under stages. Acted on the same stage as Welles. My father told me about miscarriages, but not embalming. Just three of my stories.”
I bring a lifetime of experiences that will connect with the interests of the eclectic collection of listeners of podcast conversations.
I am the author of Two Floors Above Grief: A Memoir of Two Families in the Unique Place We Called Home (launching in December, 2022).
As a child in the 1950s, I knew my house was different from my friends. Nobody had a house like mine. It was a stately, three-story, nineteenth-century Victorian. My bed was tucked next to a stage in a former ballroom on the third-floor apartment I shared with my two brothers and parents. My uncle and aunt lived with their three daughters on the floor below. I practiced music lessons on a large electric organ in a bay window of the first-floor mortuary business. Some of my play times with friends were among stacked caskets next to an embalming room in the basement. While listening to cassette tape recordings of musicals, orchestras, bands, and singers, I prepped myself with choreography I created in the funeral home parlors when they were not used for wakes. These creations became a lifetime outlet for me as a theater performer for the past 50 years on stages on which Orson Welles, Paul Newman, and Kelli O'Hara also performed.
Set from the 1920s to ‘80s, Two Floors Above Grief is full of fascinating details and anecdotes about my life as a funeral home child. These stories are brought to vivid life through a compelling collection of saved letters written by family members who lived and worked together at the O’Connor Funeral Home in Elgin, Illinois. Blending the twenty-four-hour business of death and its constantly ringing phone with the joy experienced by my two families through music, pets, backyard basketball games, co-parenting, faith, and celebrations, I offer a reflective love letter to the affirmation of family love and embracing life while in the shadow of the grief of the families who were our funeral home clients.
My career passion in education took me from elementary classrooms to principalships, college teaching, and coordinating curricula in California, Illinois, and Florida from 1973-2020. For the last ten years of my career, I authored content and provided training in areas including support for substitute teachers, LGBTQ advocacy, and Sexual Health/Family Life instruction. As a grant manager with the CDC, I was responsible for implementing programs in high schools to educate students about preventing, diagnosing, and living with HIV. I worked with community organizations to provide HIV screenings at school sites. My involvement with HIV causes continues to be enhanced through my participation in SMART Ride, a bicycling group that rides 165 miles annually from Miami to Key West, raising funds for HIV awareness, treatment, and education.
Although now retired from public education, I am working against the "Don't Say Gay" legislation that is threatening the rights of students, teachers, and families throughout Florida and beyond. This coincides with my political involvement in national, state, and local campaigns. My first campaign was in 1960 when I knocked on doors for JFK.
I reside in Ft. Lauderdale with my husband. Our family includes five sons and seven granddaughters.
In addition to writing, I enjoy chronicling the stories of families and friends through tracing genealogical histories. My prior writing includes an educational dissertation, personal letters, articles, anthologies, and presentations delivered at conferences, seminars, and webinars. Collaborating with friends and relatives, I plan family and class reunions.
I have been bringing people together personally and professionally for my life span of 72 years. I look forward to sharing those experiences and my writing with podcast hosts and listeners.
