At 100 years old, Helen is the eldest participant in Portraits of a Pandemic. Over the past decade, she has lived with her 84-year-old son and his multi-generational family in their Austintown home. Helen’s lifestyle did not change throughout the course of the pandemic; She had a few small bouts of illness, but overall managed to stay unfazed. It could be argued that, by not having a strong understanding of the virus, she was able to avoid it. When asked about her memory of the Covid-19 pandemic, she said: “I think I didn’t get sick because my family was too ambitious. They didn’t have time to catch a germ.”
April, 2020
Austintown