Program Description
Event Details
Local reporter and first-time author JoAnne Harrop joins us at the library to discuss her book titled A Daughter's Promise. Harrop will discuss her career as a reporter, her experience of living with her 93-year-old mother in a nursing home for three months, and her journey to share this story with the world.
No registration required! Meeting Room A.
In the earliest days of the pandemic, Covid-19 cut a deadly path through Pennsylvania's nursing homes. When the governor hinted at closing the facilities to the public, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporter JoAnne Klimovich Harrop had no doubt in what she would do as a result. One hour before the doors of her mother's Pittsburgh nursing home closed, JoAnne walked away from all that was precious – her husband, her home, and her career – to live in her 93-year-old mother's 250-square-foot room for the next three months. She slept on a cot next to her mother's bed, ate meals with her, and showered in a shared room with other residents. They talked about life, death, and her mother's beloved Pittsburgh Pirates. They laughed, cried, and thanked God they were together.
Eventually, the pandemic proved to be the least of their problems. Midway through JoAnne's stay, her mother was diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer. Amid her turmoil, JoAnne learned that she would be among the many reporters furloughed as the pandemic sapped her company's revenues. Her story, first appearing in the pages of the Tribune-Review, elicited an outpouring of raw, poignant introspection as readers asked themselves what they would do in her situation.
Both heartwarming and heartbreaking, "A Daughter's Promise" reveals the bond between a mother and daughter that was so strong, not even a global pandemic could tear them apart.