Synopsis
Growing Up in the Shadow of Chicago's Viaducts. Drawing from a colorful cast of characters ranging from childhood friends to the mostly bald, one-legged lady everyone tries to avoid to a father with a severe anger problem, Debra Kaplan Low shares intimate stories about her life growing up in the early 1950s to 1970 in the Manor, a south Chicago neighborhood delineated by the city's system of viaducts. She discusses environmental and health hazards that affected the Manor, an area built on landfill contaminated with toxic waste from nearby steel mills and chemical plants. Additionally, Low describes how the Manor was affected by significant social changes that culminated in white flight following the brutal murder of eight student nurses and the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Her story explores both sides of the viaducts and continues into her adult experiences with Chicagoans in Arizona.
About the Author
Debra (Debbie) Kaplan Low earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a master’s degree in communications from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Debbie and Stuart moved to Arizona in 1979 when Stu joined the Arizona State University (ASU) faculty as an assistant professor in the Department of Economics. For several years, Debbie held a dual position as an adjunct faculty member in the College of Business at ASU in both the Marketing Department and in Health Services Administration where she taught marketing communications and health care marketing classes and conducted research on hospice services in Arizona. She has coauthored scholarly articles in academic journals based on findings from this research, as well as case studies later published in marketing and management textbooks. Debbie went on to earn master’s degrees from ASU in Health Services Administration in the College of Business, and in Counseling Psychology. She retired in 2014 from private practice psychotherapy after specializing in adult and couples therapy, with special interests in bipolar disorders, personality disorders and neuropsychology. Previously, she was a medical/health care consultant in Arizona for almost 20 years. In that capacity, she provided management and marketing consulting services to hospitals, medical groups, and tertiary care facilities throughout Arizona. She also published articles in Arizona Medicine and other professional journals related to medical management issues. In Arizona, Debbie has served on the boards of directors of East Valley Hospice, Samaritan Hospice, Hospice of the Valley, the Area Agency on Aging, and Save the Family Foundation of Arizona. She has also written two children’s books that await publication. Debbie and Stu are the parents of Dr. David Low, a tenured associate professor of education at California State University, Fresno. David, his wife Katie, their daughter Ellie, and a newborn daughter, Lexie, live in Fresno.
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