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Book details Trib reporter's covid lockdown ordeal at her mother's nursing home

Shirley McMarlin
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Courtesy of Carol Danhires
JoAnne Klimovich Harrop (right) then 56, sits on the terrace with her 93-year-old mother at Charles Morris Nursing and Rehabilitation Center on May 27, 2020.
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Courtesy of the Klimovich family
Evelyn Klimovich holds her 6-month-old daughter JoAnne.
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Courtesy of the Klimovich family
JoAnne Klimovich Harrop, 56, holds the hand of her 93-year-old mother Evelyn Klimovich on June 2, 2020, inside the Charles Morris Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Squirrel Hill. Evelyn died on June 5, 2020.
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Courtesy of Tanya Wright Macks Frozen Exposure Photography + Cinematography
The Klimovich siblings (from left) Ruth “Rudy” Rooney, Rose Klimovich, Paula Montanez, David Klimovich and JoAnne Klimovich Harrop at Paula’s daughter Melissa’s wedding on April 16, 2016, in Nashville, Tenn.
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Courtesy of Stephanie Strasburg
Portrait of author JoAnne Klimovich Harrop, who has been a reporter for the Tribune-Review for 26 years.

In life, you have to take the bitter with the sweet.

It’s a notion that Tribune-Review reporter JoAnne Klimovich Harrop explores in her new book, “A Daughter’s Promise.”

The story recounts how Harrop’s close relationship with her mother, Evelyn Klimovich, ended with the two of them spending the covid lockdown in a room in a Pittsburgh nursing home.

Evelyn Klimovich died on June 5, 2020, before the world emerged from the dark days of the pandemic. She was 93.

Published by Trib Total Media LLC, the book evolved from a 2020 Tribune-Review article based on a journal Harrop kept during the 84 days she spent with her mother in a 250-square-foot room at the former Charles Morris Nursing & Rehabilitation Center in Squirrel Hill.

Sharing the same title as the book, the article received a 2021 national Edward R. Murrow Award for excellence in feature writing.

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Courtesy of the Tribune-Review
Cover of the book “A Daughter’s Promise”

Her mother had always been Harrop’s best friend and confidante. In the midst of a busy personal and professional life, Harrop spent time daily with her mother.

That’s where the promise of the book’s title comes in — when lockdown threatened, there was no question that Harrop would move into the nursing home to continue to see to her mother’s needs.

What she didn’t think about at first was that the experience was worth chronicling, even though journaling had always been a part of her life.

“Early on, in the first or second week, something happened and I was talking to (editor Ben Schmitt) about it. I don’t even remember what it was,” Harrop said. “He said to me, ‘Are you writing this down?’

“It wasn’t something I had been thinking of at that moment, but he was like, ‘Are you writing this down? Are you taking pictures? Are you shooting video?’ That’s the value of an editor,” she said.

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Courtesy of the Klimovich family
JoAnne Klimovich Harrop (right), then 56, holds an umbrella for her 93-year-old mother Evelyn Klimovich as she exits an access van on Feb. 25, 2020, outside the Charles Morris Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Squirrel Hill.

Writing the pre-story

With the publication of the article and the acclaim that followed, Harrop said she was asked by Trib Total Media President/CEO Jennifer Bertetto if there was anything else she would like to do with the material.

“I just kind of threw it out there and said, ‘Maybe write a book,’ ” Harrop said. “I still had all my notes. The story was only part of what I wrote.”

Harrop stepped away from her reporting duties to focus on the book project, which took from August 2022 to January 2023.

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Courtesy of the Klimovich family
Evelyn Klimovich, 93, loved her Pittsburgh sports teams. She attended many Pittsburgh Pirates games. This year, opening day in April was cancelled because of the pandemic, but she still dressed for game day and even sang “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” on April 2, 2020, at the Charles Morris Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Squirrel Hill.

She was guided in the process by former Trib executive editor Sue McFarland, now assistant to the president for special projects.

“It is an incredible story that will resonate with readers who have faced both the challenges and rewards of caring for aging parents,” McFarland said. “Almost everyone who has heard JoAnne’s story has stopped and asked themselves if they would be willing to walk away from all that is precious to them — their families, their homes and their careers — to care for a parent in the midst of a global pandemic.”

“It is a story that is both heartwarming and heartbreaking,” McFarland added. “You’ll laugh and cry with JoAnne and Evelyn as they navigate their days and nights together. And in the end, you’ll feel JoAnne’s crushing pain as she struggles to imagine life without her best friend.”

It was McFarland who suggested that Harrop start the book by telling her parents’ life stories, along with her own, before recounting the days in lockdown.

“Sue said you have to have people like you and Evelyn and develop the relationships, the pre-story to the story,” Harrop said. “For someone who picks up the book, who doesn’t know me and doesn’t know Evelyn, it builds up to why I was willing to live in the nursing home.”

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Courtesy of Justin Merriman
JoAnne Klimovich Harrop, a reporter with the Tribune-Review for 26 years, sits at her desk conducting a phone interview for a story in the D.L. Clark Building on Pittsburgh’s North Side.

From lockdown to publication, the book was “more than a three-year journey,” Harrop said.

It’s a journey that continues, as she still deals with her profound grief at the loss of her mother — but it’s a journey she is willing to keep sharing.

“The biggest reason I wrote the story is to have people appreciate their parents more,” Harrop said.

She thinks it’s important to advocate for people living in nursing homes, a population she sees as often neglected or forgotten.

“I would definitely have another book in me about that, because I feel so strongly about it,” she said. “It’s a very important topic, and most people will go through an experience like that with a parent.

“I’d like to explore seniors as real people, the personalities of the seniors in nursing homes and the relationships between them and the staff in the nursing homes,” she said. “You know, they became my family.”

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Courtesy of the Klimovich family
Evelyn Klimovich, (left) 93, and her daughter JoAnne Klimovich Harrop, 56, each hold up a bingo chip in the doorway of Evelyn’s room on April 6, 2020, at the Charles Morris Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Squirrel Hill.

While some people might be nervous or scared of walking into a nursing home, or unsure of how to interact with an elderly person, Harrop said she never felt that way — possibly as a result of having been so close to her parents throughout their lives.

“I’ve always been really good with older people, but if people would spend more time with them, they would get more comfortable with it,” she said. “Or maybe I’m an old soul, and I’m OK with that.”

“A Daughter’s Promise” is available online through sources including BookBaby Bookshop, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Goodreads.

Shirley McMarlin is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Shirley by email at smcmarlin@triblive.com or via Twitter .

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