With soap and utensils, brushes, and plastic water jars, four children of Carole Rae Woodmansee cleaned the tombstone their mother shared with their father, Jim. Each scrub could be engraved with the letters of the mother's name and the date of his birth and death: March 27, 1939, and March 27, 2020.
Carole died on her birthday at the age of 81.
On that morning the year ended a year since he died of COVID-19 complications after discovering it during a choir practice that killed 53 people and killed two - a widely circulated event that would be one of the most important episodes of transmission.
For their siblings, the day to celebrate the day of mourning provided an opportunity for closure after the epidemic disrupted their mourning. At last, they had a memorial that was worthy of their mother's foot in the community.
“The hardest part was that there was no farewell. It was as if she had disappeared, ”said Carole's youngest child, Wendy Jensen.
After cleaning up, her siblings remember. They say their father should be happy to be back with his 46-year-old wife. They thank them for being good parents and remember that their mother used to say “mine” before calling them by their first and other names.
"I was always 'my Bonnie,'" Bonnie Dawson told her siblings. “I remember being‘ my Bonnie. ’”
"He has not been with my father for a long time," added his older sister Linda Holeman. Their father, Jim, died in 2003.
Of the more than 550,000 people who died from the virus in the United States, Carole was one of the first. Her death occurred a few weeks after the first reported outbreak at a nursing home in Kirkland, about an hour south of Mount Vernon. Carole, a survivor of heart surgery and cancer, was sick in her home. Bonnie took care of her until they called the paramedics.
“You try to say goodbye to your mother, and they tell you to come back. It was very difficult, emotionally… I had to shout, 'I love you, Mama,' as she was dragged out of the door by my men in our yard 10 feet outside because they did not want to be near our house, ”said Bonnie.
The Skagit Valley Chorale exercise, a community choir made up of retired people and not affiliated with the church where they practiced, took place two weeks before Gur. Jay Inslee closed the state. The choir had taken precautionary measures known at the time, such as isolation and hygiene. But someone was infected.
“The choir itself called us directly, they left the voicemail. The voicemail said the person who confessed to the choir, 24 people are now sick, ”said Lea Hamner, an infectious and infectious disease that leads Skagit County Public Health. "It soon became apparent that we had a serious problem."
Hamner and his team went to work talking to choir members, often, and those they met after the practice, a total of 122 people. They carefully gather together in the evening, keeping track of such things as the seating of people and who is eating cookies or chairs.
This level of access to information is rare during an epidemic investigation, Hamner said, so when cases in the province dwindled a few weeks later, he sat down to write a report.
"There was a lot of controversy about calling it an airborne disease," Hamner said. “But we have found this foundation in the middle of this disease which can be droplets and droplets. So that was a big change. After the paper, the CDC began approving the flight transfer. ”
The disease began to spread after the Los Angeles Times article, which prompted some researchers to study the event and reinforce the conclusion that the virus went through the exercise.
"I think this choir outbreak is considered… one of the most exciting events in the world," said Linsey Marr, a professor of Virginia Tech and a specialist in transmission. Marr was among 239 experts who successfully persuaded the World Health Organization to change its guidelines by referral.
Another victim of the choir practice is 83-year-old Nancy “Nicki” Hamilton. Originally from New York, Hamilton settled north of Seattle in the 1990s. She placed her ad in the Everett Herald, and so met her husband.
"We went down to the bowling alley in Everett," said 85-year-old Victor Hamilton. "Pick us up there."
Hamilton could not make a memorial for him. Their families are spread all over the country and would love to have them in New York City if possible. He is looking forward to June 21 - his birthday.
In nearby Vernon Mountain, family and friends flocked to Radius Church, watching the installation of a few cartoons of Carole compiled by siblings. Wendy also shows off a piece of cloth made by his wife using T-shirts from Carole's music camp.
Pastor Ken Hubbard tells attendees that it is not really a funeral but a memorial, an opportunity to share stories about Carole.
"I am convinced that his prayers saved my life for a moment or two," said grandson David Woodmansee.
Loved ones remember Carole's dedication to her family, faith, and music. Some recall how he received them from his family, taught piano lessons, and volunteered at his church.
They sang “Blessed Guidance,” his favorite song. Her words were her last words to her children in the hospital.
After the service, the family returns to the cemetery to lay flowers. They sang again, closing the day with an automatic version, full of smiles of "Happy Birthday."
Later, Wendy thinks about the practice of choirs where her mother contracted the virus, noting the information found in it that helped improve prevention methods.
"As far as we know, that was God 's plan, to be useful in that."
"I think my mother would agree to give her life to save people's lives," said Bonnie, "she was the kind of person she was."
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