Barbara Kabcenell Grauer

Barbara "Barcy" Grauer, of Sarasota Florida, died on April 1, 2026. She was born in 1930 in Chicago, Illinois, to Harry Boyell and Babette Seckback Boyell, and grew up in Glencoe, Illinois and Miami Beach, Florida.

After her third year of college in Florida, she met and married Martin Kabcenell in 1951. When her husband left the U. S. Navy, they moved to southeastern Michigan and there raised three children on Cass Lake.

She started her career as a nursery-school teacher in Waterford Township. While in an Oakland Community College program to train as a library technical assistant, she became interested in career counseling and decided to make this her own career. She earned a bachelor's degree in Human Resources Development from Oakland University and a master's degree in Guidance and Counseling from Michigan State University. She started and directed the Placement office at Oakland Community College in 1973 and served as Director, Career Planning and Placement at Mercy College of Detroit from 1977 to 1986. She became involved in the National Career Development Association, now the American Counseling Association, and served as a contributor to and editor of the seminal career advice book "What Color is Your Parachute?" by Richard Bowles.

In 1987, she married Louis Ellman and together they started Ellman and Associates, a business providing career advice for college students. She continued that business until the death of her husband in 1991. In 1993 she married Millard Grauer and moved to Highland Park, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. Over the subsequent years they gradually spent more time at their second home on Longboat Key, Florida, and she moved to Florida permanently after Millard's death in 2016.

She was actively engaged in social and community activities. She was a member and president of the sisterhood of Temple Beth Jacob in Pontiac, Michigan, and was a founding member of Temple Kol Ami in West Bloomfield. She sang in Kol Ami's Temple Choir and in a local chorus of the Sweet Adelines. In Chicago she supported and enjoyed the beauty of the Chicago Botanical Gardens. While in Florida, she served as president of the local chapter of Americans for Peace Now, a group promoting peace in the Middle East. On Longboat Key she sang with the Key of Sea, a local singing group, until 2024.

She traveled extensively throughout the country to visit family and to attend conferences and teach classes in career counseling. With Millard, who served as president of the Million Dollar Roundtable, an insurance industry group, she attended conferences and enjoyed a vast network of friends all over the world.

Barcy will be remembered for her outgoing nature, warm smile, and devotion to friends and family. She loved being in and on the water, gardening, and being with her friends.

She is survived by her children, Derry (Charlene), Andrea, and Jim (Rhonda) Kabcenell; grandsons Michael (Darcy) and Dane (Sarah) Kabcenell and Ben Kuder (Erin Johnson); great-grandchildren Jonas, Liam and Grace Kabcenell; her nephews Steve and Bob Weiss and their families; Millard's daughters Wendy Born, Robin Grauer-Gray and Nancy Kisicki and their families; and Bruce Wertheimer, her dear and abiding friend. She was pre-deceased by her parents; her sister Molly Ann (David) Weiss; her husbands Martin Kabcenell, Louis Ellman and Millard Grauer; and her son-in-law John Kuder.

The family plans to hold a memorial service at a later date. In lieu of flowers, Barcy would have been grateful for donations to charities that help make the world a better place.