Ellen Key Harris-Braun, 50, of East Chatham, New York, died at home Friday, October 28, 2016. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, she attended high school in Rochester, New York, and graduated summa cum laude from Yale University with a BA in anthropology. A life-long science fiction reader, she turned her honors thesis on the use of anthropological concepts in science fiction into an application to Del Rey Books, the sci-fi division of Random House. There, in the early 90s (before the Web) she began an email newsletter, including writing advice, that ultimately became the independent Online Writing Workshop, which she and her husband, Eric Eugene Harris-Braun, directed. During her last few years at Random House, she was part of a pioneer group in charge of that publisher’s online projects.

Ellen was a midwife. She trained as a childbirth instructor after the birth of William, her first child, then became a doula after the birth of Jesse, her second. As she began her midwifery studies, she served first as a public member of the Commission for the Accreditation of Birth Centers and then as director of data development for the Midwives Alliance of North America’s division of research. As a Certified Professional Midwife, she attended home births in Massachusetts and New York, working with River and Mountain Midwives and Local Care Midwifery.

She and Eric designed the data collection software for MANA’s statistics website, an ongoing project that recently led to the publication of a landmark study of almost 17,000 planned home births. In 2014 she received the MANA Star Award for her contributions to the profession, and that organization has named its two research awards (one for students, one for practicing midwives) in her honor. In 2015 the Midwifery Institute of Philadelphia, where she had been pursuing graduate studies, established the Ellen Harris-Braun Midwife Scholar Award and presented the first one to Ellen.

Her love of words and her sharp wit – often described as not TSA-approved – were relished by her friends and family and have been passed on to her children. Evidence can be found on her blog, World of the Sick/World of the Well, an account of her illness that is at once informative and, almost to the end, a delight to read (ellen.harris-braun.com).

In addition to her husband and children, Ellen is survived by her mother Kathryn Key Montgomery of New Orleans; her siblings, Anne Montgomery Hunter of San Francisco, Debra S. Hunter of San Rafael, California, Lisa M. Hunter of Madison, Wisconsin, James Paul Hunter of Atlanta, and their father James Paul Hunter of Charlottesville, Virginia; her step-mother, Laurie Randolph Barili Harris of Atlanta; her brother- and sister-in-law Jens and Spee Braun; ten Harris cousins; and beloved members of the Quaker Intentional Village-Canaan. Her father, David Jesse Harris of Atlanta, preceded her in death.

A memorial service will be held at 11 am Saturday, November 12, at the Old Chatham Quaker Meeting House. Her family and friends are grateful to the helping circles that have sustained them and to Rufus Collea, MD, Elizabeth Hanlon, RN, and Jeffrey Arp-Sandel, MD. Memorial gifts may be made to the Ellen Key Harris-Braun Research Fund at the Foundation for the Advancement of Midwifery (www.foundationformidwifery.org).

A memorial service in celebration of Ellen’s life will be held at the Quaker meetinghouse in Old Chatham, NY, on Saturday, November 12, at 11:00 a.m. with a reception to follow. Directions may be found on the website of Old Chatham Quaker Meeting here. If you plan to attend from out of town and need overnight accommodations, please email memorial@harris-braun.com.

We hold deep gratitude for all your love, prayers, chocolate, healthy food, and other support that made it possible for Ellen to spend her final months at home surrounded by loved ones.

We welcome your Ellen stories and memories here on this blog or by snail mail to Eric at 229 Bradley’s Crossing Road, Stop 19, East Chatham, NY 12060.

Ellen took her last breath around 5:40 p.m. this evening. Her death coincided with the start of two gatherings of communities deeply important to her. Here in the Quaker Intentional Village-Canaan, we were coming together in the Farmhouse for the start of our semi-annual retreat. A few miles away at the Quaker conference center Powell House, midwives were gathering for the annual weekend retreat of the New York State Association of Licensed Midwives. This weekend will see many tears mixed with storytelling and sharing of memories. We welcome your Ellen stories and memories here on this blog or by snail mail to Eric at 229 Bradley’s Crossing Road, Stop 19, East Chatham, NY 12060.

With candles flickering on the windowsill beside Ellen and soft daylight fading outside, we enter a night with winter-time temperatures and marvel at how the seasons are changing so markedly during this period of Ellen Time. Ellen’s body continues to diminish before our eyes while her spirit fills up the room. We are grateful that we’ve succeeded in keeping her at home all these weeks, thanks to Eric’s dedication and that of the other caregivers, as well as the support from medical and hospice professionals.

Our records aren’t 100% complete, but it seems that the last day that Ellen ate a grape or two and took a sip of grapefruit juice or lemon tea was October 16^th. That’s when she started having trouble swallowing and that’s only been getting harder, causing occasional coughing that we try to soothe. Since September a year ago, Ellen dealt with edema (swelling) of her left arm and hand, and a few days ago we noticed her slender well-shaped hand reappeared. Unfortunately, that same hand is increasingly causing her discomfort, likely pins and needles and pain from neuropathy, and we’re exploring a shift in her medications to address that.

With steroids out of her system, Ellen’s high cheekbones and gorgeous jawline are once again revealed. Here is a photo of her lovely face, taken 27 years ago.

Contributed by Ellen’s sister Lisa

Aaron and I arrived today from Wisconsin, to see Ellen and everyone else here and because we’d been scheduled to come this weekend for months and were told we’d be needed. We have so appreciated Spee’s blog postings and everything everyone in this loving circle has been doing to support Ellen and her world and to keep her comfortable. So at Spee’s invitation (and as she continues to recover use of her left hand after last week’s fall) here is our experience today of seeing Ellen and being in the midst of the community of care that surrounds her.

Kathryn insisted on picking us up from the airport. We dropped suitcases at Jens and Spee’s and they offered hugs and hospitality. When we went on to Ellen and Eric’s house, Anne U had been sitting with Ellen, and as Aaron and Kathryn and I arrived from the airport and grocery, Eric was just taking over with Ellen. Anne gave us an update on Ellen’s afternoon, which included some wakefulness and time sitting in her chair, then Anne left. Will and Jesse were off with cousin Natalie shopping for used clothing; later they came home with their finds. We helped Kathryn put away groceries and make a dinner plan, and after a while Eric came down to greet us with warm hugs and a somber manner, and let us take some time to sit with Ellen ourselves.

She was asleep; we are told she is now sleeping for most of the day and night. She looks very different from the time of our last visit: sicker, thinner, and somehow paler. She was settled in her own bed, and though the equipment of illness (wheelchair, etc) is in the room, there was no aroma of illness or sense of medical interruption as she slept. I was immediately struck by the fact that Ellen is at home, in her own bed, with her own purple comforter tucked around her, with the gorgeous colors of autumn outside her own window. There was a slight furrow to her brow that her core care team has tried hard to interpret, and Eric, Kathryn, Anne U, Shivani, and hospice nurse Elizabeth have established a routine for her pain medication and other functions that seems to be giving her relief and ease for this new, quieter phase. This afternoon Ellen was breathing comfortably and the room was silent except for the patter and occasional fury of steady rain on the roof above her bed.

We decided not to risk waking her by hugging her or speaking but sat peacefully by her bedside for a while before Eric joined us; then we headed back downstairs where the kitchen had been cleaned by Claire the day before, where Josie had left a list of her cleaning projects that week, where the refrigerator was full of good fresh food from a lot of loving QIVCers, neighbors, and other friends, and from Gina who brings homemade food every Friday. Will went to pick up Eric’s friend Jean-François from the train station, and when he got home we sat down to dinner - Eric upstairs with Ellen and JF - while Jesse and Will joined us with Kathryn. When Shivani arrived to be with Ellen, Eric and JF came down to eat.

The house glowed with the dull light of a rainy fall day. Pink and yellow snapdragons brightened the kitchen counter. Tomatoes of all sizes and shapes - small green cherries, big twisty orange ones, large round variegated red and yellow orbs - were spread across the living room windowsill in advance of the first frost. Everything felt very quiet even when there was talk. Part of this seems to us to be the stillness intrinsic to the location of QIVC. Part of this seems to be about the sadness that Ellen’s voice is almost entirely absent and that the hard work of caring for her as she dies now goes on largely without her active, verbal, conscious participation. Part of this is the set of decisions made earlier this week as recommended by Elizabeth, the hospice nurse, and summarized below by Spee:

The overall idea is that we caregivers will back off and give Ellen the space to “do the hard work of dying.”  She has one foot in this world and one in the next and we need to help her go. We will no longer proactively engage with Ellen and seek in-this-world connection with her (ah, the grief in giving up those exchanges of words and gestures we were having). We will not ask her questions about her state, although we’ll certainly still be assessing her comfort level and seeking to keep that high. We won’t ask her whether she wants us to do X; we’ll say, “I’m just going to give you X now, which will help you be more comfortable” and proceed. We will, however, console and reassure her and continue to let her know we love her.

We are grateful to be in this caring community today, and grateful for Ellen’s life, the life she has shared at different points with us and others, the life she has made here with her family and community.

Below is a photo of the four sisters: Lisa, Deb, Anne, and Ellen