By Daniel Dullum
Spectrum staff writer

Dorothy Malcolm of Sacramento volunteers for Ombudsmen Services of Northern California and also serves on the Board of Bereavement Resources Center at Sutter Psychiatric. She donates 10 to 15 hours a week to her various causes.

Malcolm was a chaplain at Mercy General Hospital for more than 12 years before retiring in 1995. One year later, she began volunteering as an ombudsman.

A native of Indiana, Malcolm came to California in 1973 "by way of New Mexico, Arizona and Wisconsin." She also donates time to nursing facilities which care for people with Alzheimer's disease, and serves in the Altar Guild. Widowed twice, she has four grown children -- two sons and two daughters.

How did you get started?
After I retired as a chaplain, I was looking for something that would continue to use some of my gifts and feel like I was giving some services. When I was growing up in Indiana, my father was a minister and it was a part of our growing up that you gave to others.

What are your duties as an ombudsman?
We're assigned certain facilities and I'm one of the investigators who goes out and checks out the complaints that are called in concerning residents of long-term care facilities. We're well-trained. We spend 36 hours of training to begin with, along with continuing education all the time.

Most of the complaints we get concerning those residents come from family members who feel that maybe they're not getting proper care, or from the facility itself, which feels that maybe there's some problem with families doing their part, or from friends. Then we investigate whether or not there is a problem, and if there is, how to resolve it.

Any success stories?
Yes, there are a lot of instances where there are significant changes made.

What do you enjoy most about your volunteer work?
It's a continuation of helping people. And usually residents of long-term care facilities are not always able to help themselves.

What are your duties with the Altar Guild?
There's a lot of preparation for the church services and the liturgy -- we make sure that all of that is done properly.

What is the Board of Bereavement Network Resources?
It's a network. Our object is to make available all the bereavement resources available. It's an interdenominational program, a group of lay people who work on a one-to-one basis with another person who has some needs -- maybe the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, any kind of loss that a person has, depression, or simply being isolated, older people especially.

What do you do when you're not busy volunteering?
I play the cello, but not very well! It's for my own enjoyment. I play in a couple of junior college orchestras. And I do a lot of knitting.

I've also been trying to clean up my yard, do some planting, make it more attractive. Before my husband [Glenn Burress] died in April, that was our next goal. We'd done a lot of work on the house itself. See, I'm not a born gardener, that's the problem!

Are the gardening and house projects a part of your own grieving process?
There are stages of grieving, the first year especially. It's so universal, I think. The first year, if you allow yourself to grieve for the person that's gone, what I think happens, especially to women, what I found both times is that after that year, I think, "OK, all right, I'm starting to live my life again." Then I begin to hit another depression and wonder, "What's this all about?"

Even though it happened the first time, I was surprised when it happened the second time. Then I realized that you not only lost a spouse, you lost a part of yourself. So it's a matter of rediscovering your own identity and it's different this time because I'm old enough that I don't have other responsibilities.

Even when my first husband died, I had to go to work and support myself, which I hadn't really done before. After he died, I had a real time trying to rediscover myself, but I finally did as a chaplain.