Sande Donahue was born in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Some say “the middle of cheese country” but she prefers to refer to her birth state as the “middle of God’s forest country,” the North Woods always holding a special place in her heart. From there, her growing up years were spent primarily in the Northern Suburbs of Chicago.
After graduation, she married and moved to Port Washington, Long Island where she and her husband took over the management of a family restaurant because of illness. After selling the business and moving the family back to the Midwest, her entrepreneurial spirit motivated Sande to begin a computer consulting business working as liaison between clients and manufacturers as companies began to automate their offices. Her extracurricular activities included a two year position as President of the Chicago State Street Business and Professional Woman’s Organization which included a city wide sponsored High Tech career conference with over 2,000 in attendance and a special guest appearance by Chicago luminary, Oprah Winfrey.
Ms. Donahue has always had a penchant for the written word. One of her first writing jobs that allowed her to tap into her creative pen was as a script writer for the famous “Bozo Circus” children’s television show which ran on Superstation WGN nationwide.
Later, she was to find herself as a full-time caregiver to her mother who also was stricken with Alzheimer’s. Throughout her 14 year journey caring for her mother, she kept a journal to record the memorable moments that she always wanted to cherish and has since taken her journal and wrote her first book, Fading Angel: A Chronicle of Love, which opens a window into the world of this debilitating disease and provides help and resources for other families to survive, cope and learn from Sande’s experiences and gives you inside information on how to realistically deal with the affliction.
She continued to write free-lance for many years and then came JoJo. Since she was such a strong advocate for the care and well-being of animals of all kinds, she and her husband adopted a tiny Yorkie Poo who had been left abandoned and had a history of abuse. His story was heartbreaking and through JoJo’s always ever-thankful eyes, she felt that he was harboring a story that needed to be told. She contacted Dr. Kim Ogden, a nationally renowned animal communicator, and together, the three of them were able to develop an extraordinary story as told through the viewpoint of JoJo and his cohorts and in JoJo’s own words.
Ms. Donahue has continued to write free-lance for a variety of publications and is currently in the process of penning a series of romance novels. Combined with that endeavor, she is now writing a column about dating as a professional, tapping into the challenges, temptations and mistakes while attempting to build a career and simultaneously fulfill one’s romantic void.
Sande will be writing a regular column on professional dating for The Sussex Newspaper starting from next week.
