Item
Rose Oral History, 2022/03/08
Media
Title (Dublin Core)
Rose Oral History, 2022/03/08
Description (Dublin Core)
At the Arizona Historical Society's 2nd annual Covid Memorial event, I spoke with Rose and recorded her story about losing her brother, John, to Covid. Rose describes the challenges she faced being far away from her brother as he was diagnosed and then ill. She currently has her brother's dog, Emma, and is trying to re-home her according to her brother's wishes. Rose describes how her last communication with her brother was a text for help.
After the recording was turned off and we were walking out, she described how she felt when she was parked and walking to the hospital to say goodbye to her brother she saw anti-mask protestors at Central and Thomas Road. She was so sad and angry that these people were arguing against something that might save lives. She said that she couldn't argue with them and just wished them good health and walked away.
After the recording was turned off and we were walking out, she described how she felt when she was parked and walking to the hospital to say goodbye to her brother she saw anti-mask protestors at Central and Thomas Road. She was so sad and angry that these people were arguing against something that might save lives. She said that she couldn't argue with them and just wished them good health and walked away.
Recording Date (Dublin Core)
Creator (Dublin Core)
Type (Dublin Core)
interview
Controlled Vocabulary (Dublin Core)
Curator's Tags (Omeka Classic)
Contributor's Tags (a true folksonomy) (Friend of a Friend)
Collection (Dublin Core)
Linked Data (Dublin Core)
Date Submitted (Dublin Core)
03/12/2022
Date Modified (Dublin Core)
03/12/2022
05/03/2022
Date Created (Dublin Core)
03/07/2022
Interviewer (Bibliographic Ontology)
Erin Craft
Interviewee (Bibliographic Ontology)
Rose
Location (Omeka Classic)
Tempe
Arizona
United States of America
Duration (Omeka Classic)
00:15:24
abstract (Bibliographic Ontology)
At the Arizona Historical Society's 2nd annual Covid Memorial event, I spoke with Rose and recorded her story about losing her brother, John, to Covid. Rose describes the challenges she faced being far away from her brother as he was diagnosed and then ill. She currently has her brother's dog, Emma, and is trying to re-home her according to her brother's wishes. Rose describes how her last communication with her brother was a text for help.
After the recording was turned off and we were walking out, she described how she felt when she was parked and walking to the hospital to say goodbye to her brother she saw anti-mask protestors at Central and Thomas Road. She was so sad and angry that these people were arguing against something that might save lives. She said that she couldn't argue with them and just wished them good health and walked away.
After the recording was turned off and we were walking out, she described how she felt when she was parked and walking to the hospital to say goodbye to her brother she saw anti-mask protestors at Central and Thomas Road. She was so sad and angry that these people were arguing against something that might save lives. She said that she couldn't argue with them and just wished them good health and walked away.
Transcription (Omeka Classic)
Erin Craft 0:00
And then I'm just going to ask a couple questions. Okay. All right. This is Erin Craft and today is March 7 2022. And I am here with Rose. Hi, Rose. Do you have your permission to add this to our archives? Absolutely. Thank you so much. So you have in front of us a picture of your brother, I would love to hear about him.
Rose 0:18
John is my baby brother.
He was 55. He was a chauffeur for Desert Rose limousines. And Phoenix. He was caught up in the political and then the battles of what's true, what's real, what's not. And we've spoken many, many times about being vaccinated. And
he felt that he was strong and healthy. And he protected himself to the best of his abilities. And he thought some people really went there, were just getting ridiculous, I guess. And he went to take care of my father for a couple of days, while my older brother and his wife were going to be out of town. And he worked right up until the day that he went to my dad, who was 92, and terminally ill. And two days after being there, who started not feeling well. And he called me and told him to go get checked. And so on the 16th of August, he went to banner on McDowell, did you speak? It's American? Yeah. Which is actually where we were both born. And he was, when they tested him, he was positive. And his numbers were all over the place. I have his his last medical records. And it just astounds me that they released him. And I talked to him in the hospital and is like, you know, are they going to give you the antibodies? And he's like, no, no, and he did some IV stuff. And he said, Well, I guess they think I'm okay, they sent me home. On the 19th, it was really difficult to reach him. My husband and I, family were sending things to his door. And he said, you know, says he said, The worst part of this Easter for having are fed ama in three days, I can't get out. So he wanted him to go back. And they said, Well, you know, if this this and this happens, then I can return. And I think we heard from him maybe two or three times more after that. Okay. The last words that he texted me after I checked in with him, and we weren't reaching him. And I had made many, many threats. I guess that, you know, if I don't hear from you, I'm sending somebody over there, because he didn't really have anybody here. He's got my older brother. But that's they didn't have a very good relationship. And I never would have called anybody to go and check on him from here anyhow. Anyhow, so the last time as my daughter and I were blowing up his phone, and we, he didn't respond. And then finally he text help. And he didn't even spell it right. And it wasn't coming from his phone. His phone was already dead. It was coming from his tablet. And I asked him, Do I need to send somebody to you? Are you in trouble? And he just wrote, yes. So his last words were help. And yes. And it took me about three hours and going through multiple agencies here to finally get to station five, to go and check out my brother. And so from the time he was diagnosed, till the time the fire department got there was four days, they intubated him in the streets. He never had a chance to talk to any of us. And that took off of life support on September 4. And they passed away at 7:03am. And he was one of my girls. My eldest daughter was in New York and my youngest is in North Carolina and they were on the phone with me. And we went looked at his last lung X ray. And my girls told me I had to go see what we did an AMA and the, the letter that he had written is previous to this they actually found this in his work vehicle. Button. Last page was all about Emma. And it was if I could not find her, a forever home,
where I knew that she would be safe and loved and not harmed. Then he wanted me to euthanize her to protect her forever. He had rescued her a few years back from the pound.
And I'm not able to put her back in a cage. And I can't, I can't put her to sleep. So for the past six months, we've been trying to find her a forever home.
Erin Craft 5:38
Server, and I didn't even know about this organization, it could have been really helpful. It's been a pretty long, hard, sad and lonely roller coaster, since I've been down here, and my brother had a wheel, but the courts didn't accept it. So then my dad became his direct heir at 92 in terminal and non ambulatory. So we went through all of that, and then I had to put my dad on hospice. And once we started medication, he couldn't do anything Anyhow, it's on any paperwork. And then, after my dad died, then it was myself and my oldest brother. And
Rose 6:24
that's been very, very difficult as well. Because that wasn't what my brother would have wanted. And he always wanted to get out of the valley, we were born and raised here.
And we just kept, I just kept telling them, you know, hold on, you know, I think dad might not live us all. But once Dad's gone, then you can you can pack up and go up to the mountains where you're happy, just where that picture was taken. He was 55. Free to do. The one thing I learned about this COVID. And it's really, it's complicated for me. Because there's so much out there, and everybody's got their own theories. And there's so much we've learned in so much we don't know. It's one is it's an invisible enemy. And it determines what it does to you. It did not kill my father, who was already terminal, but took my brother. And I wanted him so desperately to pull through this. So he could be the poster child of this is for real. Yeah, you know, people need to pay attention. It may not reach you, it might bury you. But instead of him being a poster child for this thing is for real, and maybe reaching those that, you know, have cotton in their ears. He became the poster child as one of the victims of COVID. Sure, do you miss him?
Erin Craft 8:03
Sure. Well, Emma seems like a wonderful, wonderful
Rose 8:07
dog. She really is such a good girl. Because of her breed, she's a she's a bully mix. So we get a bad rap anyhow. But um, yeah, she's, she's quite amazing. I didn't have a relationship with her prior to my coming down here.
And I've tested her everywhere along the way, you know, because I needed to make sure I needed to know where her boundaries were. And we're just inseparable. You know, and she needs somebody who understands the breed, and can be just as loving and kind and, and reassuring. It has now she has since the fire department went into the house. And my brother didn't come home. She has pretty high separation anxiety, even with me that I rarely leave her. But she really is a very, very good girl.
Erin Craft 9:07
You're taking good care of her. Anything, that in 100 years, what would you like either historians or people just to know about this experience about the pandemic?
Rose 9:21
You know, I've been a part of this
from the very beginning, my my governor, because I'm from the move to New York. Governor Cuomo was on everybody's television if they were listening about this. And I think it's mostly that I think sometimes we shouldn't put everything into one basket and say that it is going to be a certain way. Or it might because people take your to word and then they stopped listening with things change. Yes. Just like politicians. You know, they say one thing and do another for this One thing at one place, and this is of the different somewhere else. I feel really cheated, though, because my brother should have had those antibodies. Every time I talked, I talked to the nurses every shift twice, beginning and I talked to the doctors every day, I asked them every day about different studies that were being done and different trials that were happening. And they would give me the excuse to you know, he is he's too far gone, or he's too heavy, his weight was against him, you know, he's been on a ventilator too long. This medication affects the kidneys, I don't care. It doesn't matter if it fails. It matters if it works. Because right now, you know, he's fighting as hard as he can, and he's getting tired. You know, those, those pictures you see on TV with all of that equipment is so real. And it's even worse when you're standing in that room. And you watch them start to remove things. And that was something that's kind of shocking for me, too. I didn't expect them to take out his arterial line when he bled a lot. And they were holding his neck while he bled out. They removed tubes from his orifices to shut down his oxygen machine.
You know, they told me that he could, you know, mouse for a while. But it was so instantaneous. You know, I think he just got tired of fighting this world. He had a lot of challenges. You know, he was never married, never had any children. And I think I think my family, my, my mom and my grandmother and my brother and all that. They just said, Come on. It's time. Thank you said, okay, I'm good with that. I wish things on the sand would have been a lot easier, both dealing with his legal things. And the
courts. Yeah. But they were not hard to deal with when you're already in pain. It's it's very difficult. Very difficult. Is there anything you're doing for yourself? How are you handling your pain and you're
sorting through his stuff. I've donated a lot of his things. As I said he was a chauffeur. So I went to the company that did his uniforms. And I asked them if they would dry clean all of his uniforms, so that I could donate
them. So maybe something good will come out of this. I'm really grateful to have watched the news. Yeah. And heard about this. Room. Is this more than native?
Erin Craft 13:28
Yeah. Yeah. So you hadn't heard of the marked by COVID? Before this? No? No. Okay. Do you have somewhere to reach out? Maybe get some other people in the same
Rose 13:37
boat? Yes. I'm very grateful. And advice. He's actually going to have a voice. Yeah, for sure. Because it's, you know, him and my family are very close for we're up in New York now. So, and I did a Direct Cremation with him. I felt that that was a responsible thing to do. He's not yet had a service, but he didn't have a whole lot of anybody here. You know, so. And even at that time, it would have been irresponsible for me to have people gather together when he's died of this. Because we don't know where he picked it up from, you know, we don't know if it's when you roll down his window or he went to the store, we don't know. And we just couldn't do that. I couldn't do that. So I'm gonna take him to the mountain. And I'm gonna throw his ashes up there and I'm gonna take him to Lake Pleasant that he absolutely loved. And there are some of his ashes there and then I'm taking them to New York. I have a piece of property that kind of has a real high area that I'm going to make a memorial garden at. And he'll forever have the view. He'll be at a summit city.
Erin Craft 14:53
Keep taking very good care of them.
Rose 14:55
should miss him. I'm mad at him all the time. You know, I told him don't make me clean your house for it. Don't make me clean your house and I'll be damned if he ain't making me clean this dog on house. That was a pretty hard things to deal with. That just have to believe.
Erin Craft 15:17
Anything else you want to share with us? Thank you so much
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
And then I'm just going to ask a couple questions. Okay. All right. This is Erin Craft and today is March 7 2022. And I am here with Rose. Hi, Rose. Do you have your permission to add this to our archives? Absolutely. Thank you so much. So you have in front of us a picture of your brother, I would love to hear about him.
Rose 0:18
John is my baby brother.
He was 55. He was a chauffeur for Desert Rose limousines. And Phoenix. He was caught up in the political and then the battles of what's true, what's real, what's not. And we've spoken many, many times about being vaccinated. And
he felt that he was strong and healthy. And he protected himself to the best of his abilities. And he thought some people really went there, were just getting ridiculous, I guess. And he went to take care of my father for a couple of days, while my older brother and his wife were going to be out of town. And he worked right up until the day that he went to my dad, who was 92, and terminally ill. And two days after being there, who started not feeling well. And he called me and told him to go get checked. And so on the 16th of August, he went to banner on McDowell, did you speak? It's American? Yeah. Which is actually where we were both born. And he was, when they tested him, he was positive. And his numbers were all over the place. I have his his last medical records. And it just astounds me that they released him. And I talked to him in the hospital and is like, you know, are they going to give you the antibodies? And he's like, no, no, and he did some IV stuff. And he said, Well, I guess they think I'm okay, they sent me home. On the 19th, it was really difficult to reach him. My husband and I, family were sending things to his door. And he said, you know, says he said, The worst part of this Easter for having are fed ama in three days, I can't get out. So he wanted him to go back. And they said, Well, you know, if this this and this happens, then I can return. And I think we heard from him maybe two or three times more after that. Okay. The last words that he texted me after I checked in with him, and we weren't reaching him. And I had made many, many threats. I guess that, you know, if I don't hear from you, I'm sending somebody over there, because he didn't really have anybody here. He's got my older brother. But that's they didn't have a very good relationship. And I never would have called anybody to go and check on him from here anyhow. Anyhow, so the last time as my daughter and I were blowing up his phone, and we, he didn't respond. And then finally he text help. And he didn't even spell it right. And it wasn't coming from his phone. His phone was already dead. It was coming from his tablet. And I asked him, Do I need to send somebody to you? Are you in trouble? And he just wrote, yes. So his last words were help. And yes. And it took me about three hours and going through multiple agencies here to finally get to station five, to go and check out my brother. And so from the time he was diagnosed, till the time the fire department got there was four days, they intubated him in the streets. He never had a chance to talk to any of us. And that took off of life support on September 4. And they passed away at 7:03am. And he was one of my girls. My eldest daughter was in New York and my youngest is in North Carolina and they were on the phone with me. And we went looked at his last lung X ray. And my girls told me I had to go see what we did an AMA and the, the letter that he had written is previous to this they actually found this in his work vehicle. Button. Last page was all about Emma. And it was if I could not find her, a forever home,
where I knew that she would be safe and loved and not harmed. Then he wanted me to euthanize her to protect her forever. He had rescued her a few years back from the pound.
And I'm not able to put her back in a cage. And I can't, I can't put her to sleep. So for the past six months, we've been trying to find her a forever home.
Erin Craft 5:38
Server, and I didn't even know about this organization, it could have been really helpful. It's been a pretty long, hard, sad and lonely roller coaster, since I've been down here, and my brother had a wheel, but the courts didn't accept it. So then my dad became his direct heir at 92 in terminal and non ambulatory. So we went through all of that, and then I had to put my dad on hospice. And once we started medication, he couldn't do anything Anyhow, it's on any paperwork. And then, after my dad died, then it was myself and my oldest brother. And
Rose 6:24
that's been very, very difficult as well. Because that wasn't what my brother would have wanted. And he always wanted to get out of the valley, we were born and raised here.
And we just kept, I just kept telling them, you know, hold on, you know, I think dad might not live us all. But once Dad's gone, then you can you can pack up and go up to the mountains where you're happy, just where that picture was taken. He was 55. Free to do. The one thing I learned about this COVID. And it's really, it's complicated for me. Because there's so much out there, and everybody's got their own theories. And there's so much we've learned in so much we don't know. It's one is it's an invisible enemy. And it determines what it does to you. It did not kill my father, who was already terminal, but took my brother. And I wanted him so desperately to pull through this. So he could be the poster child of this is for real. Yeah, you know, people need to pay attention. It may not reach you, it might bury you. But instead of him being a poster child for this thing is for real, and maybe reaching those that, you know, have cotton in their ears. He became the poster child as one of the victims of COVID. Sure, do you miss him?
Erin Craft 8:03
Sure. Well, Emma seems like a wonderful, wonderful
Rose 8:07
dog. She really is such a good girl. Because of her breed, she's a she's a bully mix. So we get a bad rap anyhow. But um, yeah, she's, she's quite amazing. I didn't have a relationship with her prior to my coming down here.
And I've tested her everywhere along the way, you know, because I needed to make sure I needed to know where her boundaries were. And we're just inseparable. You know, and she needs somebody who understands the breed, and can be just as loving and kind and, and reassuring. It has now she has since the fire department went into the house. And my brother didn't come home. She has pretty high separation anxiety, even with me that I rarely leave her. But she really is a very, very good girl.
Erin Craft 9:07
You're taking good care of her. Anything, that in 100 years, what would you like either historians or people just to know about this experience about the pandemic?
Rose 9:21
You know, I've been a part of this
from the very beginning, my my governor, because I'm from the move to New York. Governor Cuomo was on everybody's television if they were listening about this. And I think it's mostly that I think sometimes we shouldn't put everything into one basket and say that it is going to be a certain way. Or it might because people take your to word and then they stopped listening with things change. Yes. Just like politicians. You know, they say one thing and do another for this One thing at one place, and this is of the different somewhere else. I feel really cheated, though, because my brother should have had those antibodies. Every time I talked, I talked to the nurses every shift twice, beginning and I talked to the doctors every day, I asked them every day about different studies that were being done and different trials that were happening. And they would give me the excuse to you know, he is he's too far gone, or he's too heavy, his weight was against him, you know, he's been on a ventilator too long. This medication affects the kidneys, I don't care. It doesn't matter if it fails. It matters if it works. Because right now, you know, he's fighting as hard as he can, and he's getting tired. You know, those, those pictures you see on TV with all of that equipment is so real. And it's even worse when you're standing in that room. And you watch them start to remove things. And that was something that's kind of shocking for me, too. I didn't expect them to take out his arterial line when he bled a lot. And they were holding his neck while he bled out. They removed tubes from his orifices to shut down his oxygen machine.
You know, they told me that he could, you know, mouse for a while. But it was so instantaneous. You know, I think he just got tired of fighting this world. He had a lot of challenges. You know, he was never married, never had any children. And I think I think my family, my, my mom and my grandmother and my brother and all that. They just said, Come on. It's time. Thank you said, okay, I'm good with that. I wish things on the sand would have been a lot easier, both dealing with his legal things. And the
courts. Yeah. But they were not hard to deal with when you're already in pain. It's it's very difficult. Very difficult. Is there anything you're doing for yourself? How are you handling your pain and you're
sorting through his stuff. I've donated a lot of his things. As I said he was a chauffeur. So I went to the company that did his uniforms. And I asked them if they would dry clean all of his uniforms, so that I could donate
them. So maybe something good will come out of this. I'm really grateful to have watched the news. Yeah. And heard about this. Room. Is this more than native?
Erin Craft 13:28
Yeah. Yeah. So you hadn't heard of the marked by COVID? Before this? No? No. Okay. Do you have somewhere to reach out? Maybe get some other people in the same
Rose 13:37
boat? Yes. I'm very grateful. And advice. He's actually going to have a voice. Yeah, for sure. Because it's, you know, him and my family are very close for we're up in New York now. So, and I did a Direct Cremation with him. I felt that that was a responsible thing to do. He's not yet had a service, but he didn't have a whole lot of anybody here. You know, so. And even at that time, it would have been irresponsible for me to have people gather together when he's died of this. Because we don't know where he picked it up from, you know, we don't know if it's when you roll down his window or he went to the store, we don't know. And we just couldn't do that. I couldn't do that. So I'm gonna take him to the mountain. And I'm gonna throw his ashes up there and I'm gonna take him to Lake Pleasant that he absolutely loved. And there are some of his ashes there and then I'm taking them to New York. I have a piece of property that kind of has a real high area that I'm going to make a memorial garden at. And he'll forever have the view. He'll be at a summit city.
Erin Craft 14:53
Keep taking very good care of them.
Rose 14:55
should miss him. I'm mad at him all the time. You know, I told him don't make me clean your house for it. Don't make me clean your house and I'll be damned if he ain't making me clean this dog on house. That was a pretty hard things to deal with. That just have to believe.
Erin Craft 15:17
Anything else you want to share with us? Thank you so much
Transcribed by https://otter.ai