LEAP: Doris Brennan

Doris Awards & Recognitions
"History of Independent Living" - by Doris Brennan
Learn about the Doris Brennan Endowment Fund 

Doris Brennan Biography

Doris Brennan defied doctors who said in 1954 that she had only a short time to live after a traffic accident left her a quadriplegic. She not only survived, she helped lead a revolution in disability rights.

Doris was born in Cleveland, Ohio to Mr. and Mrs. Benny and Rose DelBrocco.  Doris attended John Hay High School and John Carroll University.  She was 20 years old, and a newlywed when her life changed.  On October 24, 1954, her spinal cord was severed (between the fifth and sixth vertebrae) in a vehicle accident when she was thrown from a van in which she was a passenger. 

After 5 months on a hospital danger list, and another two years at the recently opened Highland View Rehabilitation Hospital, she eventually returned to her parents’ Euclid home. Since the concept of personal care assistance didn’t exist, her parents provided her daily care.  Doris stated “The fact that I had a very supportive family who were able to accept the reality of my disability was a major factor in my survival.”

In the 1970’s, Doris became involved as an activist and advocate and member of the National Paraplegia Foundation, now known as the National Spinal Cord Injury Association.  She was a founding member of the Northeast Ohio Chapter.  Its initial focus was to promote more interest and investment in spinal cord research. It later changed to making the community around us more welcoming to all people with disabilities.  “Inch by inch, curb cut by curb cut, and ramp by ramp, we began to make a difference” wrote Doris.

Doris’ first job, after disability, was a home-based job as a scheduler of nurses to staff the Red Cross Blood Units.  She was at the forefront of efforts to create the first Center for Independent Living in Ohio, and in 1981 Doris became Director of Services for Independent Living.  In 1986, she became Director of Linking Employment, Abilities & Potential (LEAP), - then called Lutheran Employment Awareness Program.  Doris took a three-pronged approach against the problem of unemployment among persons with disabilities: educating and guiding consumers to be better prepared to pursue employment; building awareness among businesses about the benefits of hiring qualified employees disabilities; and advocating for the removal of  barriers which prevent people with disabilities who wish to work to be employed.

In 1988 Doris became the first Ohioan named to the National Hall of Fame for Persons with Disabilities and also received the E.B. Whitten Silver Medallion Award of the National Rehabilitation Association.  She was given the Ohio Rehabilitation Association’s Bell Greve award. In 2000, she was named a “diversity champion” by the Greater Cleveland Roundtable and National Conference for Community and Justice.  “We need to expect a lot of ourselves and need the public to also have high expectations of what we can do.  We can do anything,” she told an interviewer

Doris was invited to witness the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, on the south lawn of the White House.  She later wrote, “The heady feeling of that memorable moment remains with me and gives me pause to hope that those of us with disabilities will one day soon be an integral part of American life, recognized for our abilities and celebrated for our achievements”.

As a pioneer in the field of disability rights and independent living, Doris traveled throughout the country as an advocate and speaker. 

Throughout her life Doris enjoyed music and dance, going as often as she could to the Opera and Ballet.  She enjoyed going through cook books and watching cooking show, and encouraged her family to try new recipes. Perhaps her greatest joy came from being “Auntie” to her many nieces and nephews, orchestrating annual Christmas plays and creating family traditions which relied on, as she put it, “time and imagination”.

Doris remained a mentor to hundreds, and the Director of LEAP, until her death on December 18, 2000 at the age of 66.