Milwaukeean Barbara Markoff’s grandmother, Lillian Cohen, lived in Chicago and spent the last three years of her life being cared for by Anna Dobrakowska.
When Cohen died in December 2003 at age 98, Markoff wanted to say thank you to Dobrakowska.
“I wanted to give her a book that honored and celebrated caregiving,” Markoff told The Chronicle in a telephone interview. There was just one problem: “The book did not exist,” Markoff said.
So some time during the months after her grandmother’s death, “it occurred to me that I wanted to help create the book,” Markoff said. “I knew I wanted it to be a coffee-table book that would have stories and photos.”
The result is “A Celebration of Caregiving: Portraits & Stories,” published this year by Milwaukee’s IndependenceFirst organization ($29.95, 96 pages).
And when Markoff gave a copy to Dobrakowska, it was clear to Markoff that it “did exactly what I had wanted,” Markoff said.
“She told me it helped validate how worthwhile she is as a person and the importance of the caregiving work she had been doing for so many years,” said Markoff. “That was my reward for the work that I put into helping create the book.”
Diverse group
After conceiving the idea, however, it took another year for work actually to begin, Markoff said.
She brought the idea to Lee Schulz, executive director of IndependenceFirst.
This organization, as stated on the book’s jacket, is “a non-profit, non-residential center for independent living directed by, and for the benefit of, persons with disabilities primarily in the four county area of metropolitan Milwaukee… Our mission is to effectively facilitate the empowerment of individuals with disabilities through education, advocacy, independent living services and coalition-building.”
Markoff describes her profession as working in “training and development and strategic planning.” She said she had known Schulz because he had hired her to work with IF’s board of directors on strategic planning.
“He liked the idea right away,” Markoff said. But it wasn’t until several months later, almost at the end of 2004, that he agreed that IF should “put together a project team” and devote “resources, staff time and money to make the book happen,” she said.
And, of course, IF had goals for the book beyond Markoff’s desire to thank Dobrakowska. According to a document provided by Carol Voss, IF’s public relations and marketing manager, IF produced the book “to educate about, advocate for and elevate caregiving as a profession.”
Or as Voss told The Chronicle in a telephone conversation, IF “wanted to educate the community about the relationships of caregivers and recipients in their homes, to advocate for additional community-based options for caregiving,” and to increase community respect for caregiving and its often underappreciated practitioners.
Markoff presided over a five-member team that included herself and Voss, plus Scott Luber, Jamakaya and Joe Hausch of the Hausch Design Agency. This group found 41 caregivers and recipients who were willing to be featured.
The group members “made sure we had stories that represent a diverse array of situations, ages of caregivers, cultures and backgrounds and races of caregivers and recipients, and the types of disabilities,” Markoff said. She believes that at least three of these stories involve Jewish people, but “we didn’t ask about people’s religion,” she said.
The group then hired three writers and four photographers to write the stories and take photographs of the participants, she said. The project took about two years from the start of work until the book was published this past spring.
Markoff now works as community development manager for the American Society for Quality, which describes itself as “one of the largest professional membership associations that focuses on quality management practices and education.” But she virtually switched professions to create the book.
“The goodie for me, in addition to [the gift for] Anna, was learning about writing, photography, graphic design and book production, and now marketing a book,” said Markoff. “It is so fascinating.”
IndependenceFirst unveiled the book at a “Power Lunch” it had on June 14, an event at which actor Ben Vereen spoke. The book is now available for purchase at the Harry W. Schwartz Bookstores or through IF.
For more information, call IF, 414-291-7520, or visit the Web sites independencefirst.org or caregivingbook.org.
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