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December 1st, 2008
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Finding a home away from home

U.S. ambassador's wife Alexandra Graber is on a mission of her own

By Claire Compton
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
August 13th, 2008 issue

MICHAEL HEITMANN/The Prague Post
Graber spends much of her time working with women's groups and charities. "I don't love the money-raising part. It's finding the charities, going to visit them," she says.
MICHAEL HEITMANN/The Prague Post
The Petschek Residence has been likened to the Palace of Versailles.
MICHAEL HEITMANN/The Prague Post
Alexandra and her husband, U.S. Ambassador Richard Graber, attended this year's Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
The Graber File



Hometown: Shorewood, Wisconsin
Family: Husband, Richard; sons Richard and Erik
Career: Occupational therapist for patients with traumatic brain injuries
Favorite part of Prague: Learning from the natives
Saving grace: Embassy staff

Five large paintings by Wisconsin artists fit surprisingly well against the ornate walls of the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Prague. Beyond their aesthetic purpose, they greet Alexandra Graber in the halls with reminders of her home state.
On loan from galleries in Milwaukee and Racine, the art splashes the walls with tableaus of orange day lilies, a moody green seaweed watercolor, a print of a worn and wrinkled U.S. flag, and, to Graber’s delight, a simple impression of a man in a work shirt and black socks ironing his slacks.
“This one is everywhere,” she laughs, and hands over a brochure featuring Tory Folliard’s Pressing Pants on the cover, and on the inside as an irreverent backdrop to a portrait of Ambassador Richard Graber and his wife.
The couple’s letter in the brochure for the art display explains that “many conversations about cultural norms take place in front of this work,” but today Graber shares a laugh with Helena Stehlíková, a press assistant with the embassy for seven years.
“Art in Embassies” is a U.S. State Department program giving ambassadors and their spouses a chance to bring touches of home to their posts in foreign countries, ostensibly to show visitors and guests American artwork, but in practice letting the diplomats put their own touches on residences that will always be only temporary homes to their inhabitants.
After a “completely unexpected” phone call from U.S. President George W. Bush at the beginning of 2006, the Grabers began preparing for the post in Prague without a second thought, Graber said. After several months of preparation, Alexandra, her husband and their youngest son arrived for the first time in Prague for a “baptism by fire.”
“I knew it would be a wonderful experience for [Richard] and our family. I was worried about what would happen to my house plants, but not the big picture,” she said.
While her husband arrived to a life planned to the minute, Alexandra found herself overwhelmed in the Petschek Residence — which visitors remark resembles a smaller version of Versailles with its brocade, gilded details and expansive verandas and lawn. An ambassador’s wife has no official duties, and Graber found her new role surprisingly without structure, a fact she embraced.
New country, new life
“I was left to my own, thankfully,” she said, and her first two weeks in her new home were spent “soul-searching” and exploring both the residence and the city she had never before visited. There was no official state department tour, no personal guide, no exclusive access to parts of the city reserved for diplomats, celebrities and VIPs. There was a tram pass and two weeks’ worth of riding the length of the tram, metro and bus lines in Prague next to the tourists, Czechs and expats who clog the lines.
“I spent the first two weeks figuring out where I was,” she said. “I love the public transportation here.”
Geographic bearings aside, Graber had to tackle how she would transport a semblance of her life in the United States to the Czech Republic. She knew it would be a different version, but nevertheless she was committed to continuing the most important parts of her life in her new environs — namely, a lifelong career in occupational therapy for patients with traumatic brain injuries and a commitment to charity.
“I wasn’t sure how I was going to do it, but I knew I was going to continue to be the same person over here as I was in the States as much as possible.”
In Wisconsin, Graber practiced occupational therapy upon graduation from Boston University in 1982 until departing for Prague in September 2006.  Her patients were often males in the 18–25 age range whose lives have been irrevocably changed after car accidents, gang fights or simply falling off a roof. Graber’s work helped them develop toward a semblance of the life they had before, beyond simply walking again and performing simple actions usually taken for granted.
“There’s a lot of physical therapy for walking, sitting, balance and coordination, but there’s also working on the ability to think and behave in a setting like eating dinner and what utensils to use and how to think it through,” she said.
One patient sticks out in her mind. A young boy from a small town “Up North” as they say in Wisconsin, got his flannel shirt caught in a machine at a saw mill and at the age of 18 lost an arm and suffered a traumatic brain injury. Graber found herself in the position of not simply a therapist but an advocate as she participated in a trial against the employer. Even more unexpectedly, she found herself in the middle of a struggle between doctors who wanted to fix everything and the patients and his family, who simply wanted to move on.
“All the doctors wanted to give him an artificial arm, but it was the last thing the patient wanted. With his head injury, he’d never learn to manipulate it, and the family saw it as a cost for something so high-tech they never thought he’d use it,” she said.
Back to work
While Graber can’t continue the most important part of her job, the hands-on treatment of patients, she’s found a purpose in her visits to hospitals in the Czech Republic and enlightening dialogues with her Czech counterparts and researchers in the field. After small tours of hospitals and contacting various occupational therapy departments, Graber was put in touch with Pavel Kolář, an internationally known rehab researcher at Charles University. Out of that relationship, Graber has presented two  seminars at Charles University’s First Medical Faculty, with more scheduled for the fall semester.
The experience has given her an objective look at the “intense” medical field in the United States, and she speculates that a blend of the U.S. and Czech systems would “be a great medical system.”
The hands-on experience she now misses from direct work with patients is replaced with extensive involvement in charities, primarily through the International Women’s Association of Prague.
“I consulted Alexandra many times and valued her experience and opinion about where we were going to distribute charity funds,” said IWAP President Tuulikki Forsstroem.
Graber’s satisfaction comes not from the social fundraising events but with the application of their results, and she makes a point of visiting the IWAP’s 25 beneficiaries every year, from the family in Brno with six foster children to larger organizations that tackle abuse against women. Each beneficiary is important to her, and Graber says she appreciates the impact each makes according to their abilities rather than sheer size.
“I don’t love the money raising part,” she said. “It’s finding the charities, going to visit them that has been really important to me.”
Ultimately, Graber points to a desire to give back to a community that has given her an exceptional home and experience for the past two years. Her circle of friends is a pleasing balance of Czechs and expats that has helped provide a complete picture of the country.
“I have learned so much from the Czechs, from their life stories or talking to expats who have been here for a long time. The people here are what really make this country, they have such a spirit, they continue to push forward, not necessarily to be better but to be happy and productive members of a world they are increasingly a part of.”

Claire Compton can be reached at ccompton@praguepost.com


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