Club member Victoria Gaither loses three members of extended family to COVID19
National Press Club member Victoria Gaither, freelance broadcaster and photo journalist, returned to her hometown of Washington, D.C., after five years in New Zealand, just as the novel coronavirus began its peak assault on the city. Among its earliest victims were three members of Gaither's extended family.
Within two weeks in April, COVID-19 claimed the lives of three members of the Leake family, a fixture on Alabama Avenue in the Southeast quadrant of the city where Gaither grew up.
Leslie Leake, a great aunt on Gaither's grandmother's side, presided over the family home with husband John Leake, Sr., 80. Both worked at the U.S. Postal Service and together they raised five children. Gaither remembers gathering with her cousins at their house for 4th of July to watch the fireworks or for Thanksgiving to share a family meal.
"Everybody gravitated toward her house because she was the matriarch," Gaither said. "It was the hub of activity not just for family members but for anyone who lived on the block."
The couple had retired and were caring for a grandchild when coronavirus struck the close-knit family, Gaither said.
The first person to become ill was the Leakes' daughter Enekee "Nicky" Leake, 45. She worked in administration at Washington Hospital Center. Over a weekend in late March, a cough turned into severe shortness of breath. She spent two weeks tethered to a ventilator before she died on April 11.
The Leakes' son, John Leake, Jr., 44, who worked at the U.S. Postal Service and had a part-time job at Weis Market, a grocery store in Prince George's County, became ill with the virus and was taken to Howard University Hospital, she said.
Gaither remembers him as the family jokester who always made people laugh, and for his signature "extreme" hot wings. He died April 28, 13 days after his 44th birthday.
By then, their mother, Leslie Leake, was hospitalized at George Washington University Hospital. She was too ill to know her son had died in a different hospital. She succumbed to the disease on April 30 at the age of 76.
Leake and her son will be buried Saturday at Ft. Lincoln Cemetery in Brentwood, Md., Gaither said.
Both John Leake, Sr. and a grandchild have also tested positive with COVID-19, but are faring well, she said.
Gaither says she's struck by the ferocity of the pandemic and the haphazard approach to corralling it in the United States compared to the collective, country-wide approach in New Zealand, which has so far recorded 1,490 cases and 21 deaths.
"The differences are astonishing," she said.
In Washington, D.C., the virus has hit the city's predominantly African American communities particularly hard.
"My two cousins and aunt aren't just statistics: Family, church family, neighbors, colleagues, society as a whole value them," Gaither said. "The leaders, the city government, the community owes it to the people who are disproportionately affected to give them a level playing field by giving them the resources they need to fight this disease."