Leye Leibler-Chrzanowski

Disability campaigner Born: August 28, 1946; Died: June 7, 2016. LEYE Leibler-Chrzanowski, who has died aged 69, emigrated from Montrose when she was 17, became an American citizen and much-travelled US military wife. She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when she was 39 and became a passionate campaigner for disabled rights.

She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1986. Eventually confined to a wheelchair, she regularly appeared on American TV to speak on their behalf. Best known by her second married name, Chrzanowski, she fought for greater media understanding of disability problems, attacking what she called “shop-worn stereotypes such as wheelchair-bound, afflicted and special needs”. Her campaigning led the American Society of Newspaper Editors to include hiring people with disabilities along with women, gay men and lesbi- ans, older people, African-Americans, and others, to its mission statement. “The newsroom must be a place in which all employees contribute their full potential, regardless of physical ability or other defining characteristics,” she said.

She pointed to media coverage of Christopher “Superman” Reeve after he was rendered quadriplegic in 1995 by a To place your notice in Family Announcements Monday - Friday 9.00am -5.00pm riding accident. She criticised the media focus on “whether Superman would ever walk again”. Disability, she believed, should be seen not simply as the personal struggle of individuals but in a wider context as “a collective struggle of an oppressed minority group”.

She founded the American Disability News Service (DNS), a media outlet to give a voice to the disabled at a time when their voices were largely ignored. As those voices began to be heard, she became a spokesperson for the disabled on American radio and TV shows, helping push for disabled access to public facilities and events (American DNS is not to be confused with a British organisation of the same name, run by disabled journalist John Pring).

During the 1990s, she was also executive editor of the publication One Step Ahead, which spread disability issues nationally, partly to let disabled people express themselves. She also founded a networking group called Excel (Excellent Capabilities Empower Leadership). It allowed disabled American professional people to communicate with each other and with potential employees. “In a way, networking is counter to the way we do things. It’s like asking for help. But it’s necessary,” she said.

Her influence led her to being invited to represent the disabled on several community services board in and around Washington DC. That, in turn, led the US government to invite her to prepare publications for the National Council on Disability and the National Institute on Disability Rehabilitation and Research. Soon, she had a US-wide profile as a spokesperson for the disabled, her face known nationwide.

Leye Jeannette Leibler was born in Montrose on 28 August, 1946, and attended Montrose Academy. She spoke little of her parents but her maternal grandfather, Archibald Paterson, from Edinburgh, served in the Highland Light Infantry (HLI) during the First World War and met his future wife, Elizabeth Finnigan, in her native Montrose while he was stationed there. She emigrated to the US in 1964, married Darryl DeSeve, a US serviceman, became a US citizen in 1967 and had three children. Soon after her divorce in 1975, she married another US military officer, Stanley Chrzanowski.

After years of travelling between military bases, she and Stanley Chrzanowski settled in Chantilly, Virginia, where she became a parishioner of two Catholic churches. She spent her latter days in Washington. She continued publishing and campaigning after a double mastectomy in 2000 and she maintained close links with Montrose through friends and relatives. Never far from her was the book Montrose through Time by Tom Valentine, a former North Sea oil worker who went on to help care for young people in the Montrose area.

Leye Jeannette Chrzanowski died of pancreatic cancer at her Washington DC home. She is survived by her children David, Jonathan and Deborah DeSeve, and her stepsons Stanley and Jeffrey Chrzanowski.