Ann Burack-Weiss of Montauk and New York City, an author and gerontologist, died of complications of metastatic breast cancer at home in Manhattan on April 3. She was 86.
Noted by the National Association of Social Workers as a pioneer in her field and an authority on gerontology, her career spanned 50 years of social practice supervision, research, and education in the spheres of aging and H.I.V./AIDS. She cared for thousands of aging New Yorkers in their homes and provided clinical support at the Gay Men’s Health Crisis Center in New York for more than 15 years during the AIDS crisis.
Ms. Burack-Weiss published seven books, including “The Lioness in Winter: Writing an Old Woman’s Life,” from 2015, which sought both to destigmatize aging women and illuminate their remaining potential, and the 2006 “The Caregiver’s Tale: Loss and Renewal in Memoirs of Family Life,” which made a critical contribution to the understanding of the demands upon, and needs of, caregiving and caregivers.
At the time of her death Ms. Burack-Weiss was collaborating on an adaptation of “The Lioness in Winter” for the stage. An Off Broadway production is expected in 2024.
Born in Boston on July 20, 1936, to Robert Burack and the former Pauline Levinson, she attended Simmons College, where she met her future husband, Roy Weiss, a law student at Harvard. She earned her licensed clinical social worker credential and Ph.D. at the Columbia School of Social Work.
She would go on to teach two generations of students there as an adjunct professor, and served as associate faculty in narrative medicine in the master’s program.
She also taught courses on aging at New York Technical College, Bryn Mawr College, and the Institute of Gerontology at Utica College, and acted as consultant for agencies including the New York Academy of Medicine, Lighthouse International, the New York City Department for the Aging, and the Brookdale Institute on Aging and Adult Human Development at Columbia University.
Ms. Burack-Weiss, a frequent contributor to The New York Times and The East Hampton Star, published more than 50 articles and book reviews and presented over 150 keynote addresses and panels since 1977. She coauthored the landmark study “Gerontological Social Work Supervision and Social Work Practice With the Frail Elderly and Their Families: The Auxiliary Function Model.” Both the book and the model it promoted were adopted by several schools of social work.
In the last decade of her life, she continued to produce research and writing on gerontology and narrative theory. In 2017 she co-edited “Narrative in Social Work Practice: The Power and Possibility of Story.” Her final book, “Old Woman in the City,” a collection of personal essays that came out last year, explored the lives of the invisible elderly, beginning with her own.
Her guiding principle both personally and professionally was to “be of use.”
She valued curiosity and generosity, and wanted to be remembered for doing her best. Even in hospice, pen and yellow legal pad in hand, she observed her own experience of dying, remarking, “This is the most interesting time in my life.”
Her husband died before her. She is survived by a daughter, Donna Nelson of California, and a son, Kenneth Weiss of Montauk, and two granddaughters, Danielle and Jennie Rose.
A memorial service will take place on Sunday at 2:30 p.m. at the Riverside Memorial Chapel in Manhattan.
