Honoring the Dead

In today’s On the Square , Russell E. Saltzman remembers Jenifer Estess, the actress who lost her career and her life to A.L.S.:

I never met her, not really, though thirteen years ago we once spent a long morning in same U.S. Senate hearing room. We were on opposing sides of a debate on embryonic stem cell use. The hearing was staged—that’s the word—by the late Arlen Specter, senator from Pennsylvania, and Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa. The two of them co-sponsored a Senate bill permitting federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.

Read the rest here . Estess’ memoir on her struggles with A.L.S., entitled Tales from the Bed: On Living, Dying, and Having It All , was published posthumously in 2004. You can also read this contemporary account from People magazine about how she and her sisters worked together in response to her diagnosis .