AP team tells the poignant stories behind ‘empty spaces’ as US nears 1 million COVID deaths
By Adam Geller, David Goldman, Shelby Lum, Carla K. Johnson, Heather Hollingsworth, Samantha Shotzbarger and Elise Ryan
How do you chronicle a million people dead, in the richest country in the world, from a disease no one had heard of a few years ago? The answer from AP journalists who collaborated to capture the approaching toll of 1 million U.S. deaths from COVID: Look for the empty spaces, then tell the stories of those who had filled them. And let the voices of those left behind reveal the mosaic of loss that has forever marked the country.
In true AP fashion, the stories came together with extensive coordination across departments and formats. National writer Adam Geller worked with health and science reporter Carla K. Johnson in Seattle and Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City to identify and interview the subjects.
Photographer David Goldman visited eight cities and 11 families in 12 days as the 1 million milestone approached, and also worked with fellow photographer Maye-E Wong and Geller on a separate photo package. Jim Anderson in Denver jumped in to conduct an interview in Spanish when Johnson sought help. Video journalist Shelby Lum,with the health and science team, pulled together not just newsroom and consumer-ready video but also a number of character vignettes that found wide used online.
Owner Gerald Riley stands for a portrait over the chair of his best friend and fellow barber, Sherman Peebles, at his barber shop in Columbus, Ga., March 9, 2022. Peebles, 49, died of complications of COVID-19 last September. Months later, Riley still arrives at the shop each Saturday expecting to see Peebles’ truck parked outside. At day’s end, he thinks back to the routine he and his friend of 25 years always followed when closing. “I love you, brother,” they’d tell one another. Riley couldn’t have known those would be the last words they’d ever share. – AP Photo / David Goldman
ShiVanda Peebles poses for a portrait with a photo of her and her husband, Sherman, hangs on the wall next to his sheriff’s uniform at their home in Columbus, Ga., March 8, 2022. In late September, as Sherman Peebles lay in the hospital, the U.S. toll topped 675,000, surpassing the number of Americans killed by the Spanish flu pandemic a century ago. He died the following day. – AP Photo / David Goldman
A path winds off into the distance, March 10, 2022, at the North Carolina Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill, N.C., where Mary Jacq McCulloch enjoyed outings from her nursing home with her daughter and granddaughter. McCulloch’ died from COVID-19 on April 21, 2020 at 87. – AP Photo / David Goldman
Karen McCulloch, left, and her daughter, Kirsten, hold a photo of Karen’s mother, Mary Jacq McCulloch, March 10, 2022, at the North Carolina Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill, N.C., where they used to bring Mary Jacq on outings from her nursing home. Mary Jacq’s death came at the height of a North Carolina spring. Now, Karen is reminded of their drives together to gaze at the trees in blossom. Mary Jacq’s favorite were the redbuds. “They are stunning magenta,” Karen says. “I can’t see one in bloom without thinking, ‘Mom would love this.’ Kind of like her, brightly colored and demanding attention.” – AP Photo / David Goldman
A tractor sits idle among the fields plowed for years by Luis Alfonso Bay Montgomery in Somerton, Ariz., March 19, 2022. Montgomery larored straight through the pandemic’s early months, piloting a tractor through lettuce and cauliflower fields. Even after he began feeling sick in mid-June, he insisted on working, says Yolanda Bay, his wife of 42 years. He died of COVID complications at age 59 on July 18, 2020. – AP Photo / David Goldman
The hat of Luis Alfonso Bay Montgomery, second from left in family photo, hangs on the bed as his wife, Yolanda Bay, stands in their bedroom in San Luis, Ariz., March 19, 2022. When Montgomery died on July 18, 2020, his wife was on her own for the first time since they’d met as teenagers in their native Mexico. – AP Photo / David Goldman
A chair sits empty under a portrait of Walt Whitman at the desk of Arnie Kantrowitz in his New York apartment, March 17, 2022. When the omicron variant swept through New York last winter, Kantrowitz got sick. At first, it seemed like a cold and a fever, but then the coronavirus infection derailed his diabetes. Kantrowitz, an author, Walt Whitman scholar and gay rights activist, died Jan. 21, 2022, at age 81. – AP Photo / David Goldman
Larry Mass looks up at a portrait of him and his longtime partner, Arnie Kantrowitz, in their New York apartment, March 17, 2022. Kantrowitz died of complications from COVID on January 21, as the U.S. death toll moved closer to 1 million. “He’s still with me,” Mass says. “He’s there in my heart.” – AP Photo / David Goldman
A microphone stands as David Lawyer plays the piano in his living room where his father, Neil Lawyer, would have sometimes sung along, in Bellevue, Wash., March 20, 2022. The elder Lawyer died at age 84 on March 8, 2020, among the first residents of a Seattle area nursing home who succumbed to COVID-19 during the outbreak. At weddings, he joined his sons, grandson and nephew to serenade brides and grooms in a makeshift ensemble dubbed the Moose-Tones. Last October, when one of his granddaughters married, it marked the first family affair without Lawyer there to hold court. The Moose-Tones went on without him. “He would have just been beaming because, you know, it was the most important thing in the world to him late in life, to get together with family,” David says. “I can honestly tell you he was terribly missed.” – AP Photo / David Goldman
A photo of Neil Lawyer sits on the piano as his son, David Lawyer, plays in his home in Bellevue, Wash., March 20, 2022. When the elder Lawyer died of complications from COVID-19 on March 8, 2020, the U.S. toll stood at 30, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. – AP Photo / David Goldman
A lopper lays on the table, March 16, 2022, at US Evergreen Wholesale Florist in New York, where Eddy Marquez trimmed plants for 33 years. Marquez, died from COVID on April 8, 2020 during one of the deadliest weeks in New York City. The father of three loved plants and the yard of their home is filled with the bushes and trees he tended. He died days after his brother-in-law who lived in the same house. – AP Photo / David Goldman
Ivett Marquez stands with a photo of her father Eddy and her mother Irma in the garden her father cared for at their home in the Brooklyn borough of New York, March 15, 2022. His daughter recalled her dad working long hours, but reserving Sundays for family time. “He was an amazing father. He was an amazing husband, an amazing person. My father was just our best friend. You know, I guess his daughter’s first love,” says Marquez. She now tends the plants in his place. – AP Photo / David Goldman
A chair sits at the nurses’ station where Jennifer McClung worked as a longtime dialysis nurse at Helen Keller Hospital in Sheffield, Ala., March 7, 2022. In November of 2020, McClung, 54, tested positive for COVID-19. “Mama, I feel like I’m never coming home again,” she texted her mother, Stella Olive, from a hospital bed. Her lungs severely damaged by the virus, she died just hours before the nation’s vaccination campaign began on December 14. Today, a decal with a halo and angel’s wings marks the place McClung once occupied at the third-floor nurses’ station. – AP Photo / David Goldman
Photos of Jennifer McClung sit on a table at the home of her mother, Stella Olive, left, sitting with her daughter, Tracee Jenkins, center, and Jennifer’s daughter Mary, in Muscle Shoals, Ala., March 7, 2022. “It still just seems like she could just walk through the door,” McClung’s mother says. “I haven’t accepted that she’s gone. I mean, a body is here one day and talking and laughing and loving and and then, poof, they’re just gone.” – AP Photo / David Goldman
Professional editing equipment stands next to an empty stool in the studio where audio and video guru Larry Quackenbush worked as a producer for Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal denomination based in Springfield, Mo., March 22, 2022. Quackenbush died from COVID-19 on Aug. 3, 2021 after contracting the virus while caring for his son, Landon, who had tested positive along with Landon’s mother. So it was no surprise that Larry jumped in to care for his son, not worried about his own fragile health. – AP Photo / David Goldman
Cathie Quackenbush, right, sits on the couch with her children, Landon, 13, and Macy Sweeters, at their home in Springfield, Mo., March 22, 2022. Larry Quackenbush, 60, was the glue that held his family together. After Cathie suffered brain damage in a car accident more than 20 years ago, he became the primary cook, carpooler and caregiver, while continuing to work. When Landon, came home from summer camp sick with COVID, Quackenbush stepped up again. “Even when he started feeling sick, he kept taking care of everybody,” Sweeters says. “Even when he started feeling sick, he kept taking care of everybody,” daughter Macy Sweeters says. “It just hurts so much. He was my best friend.” – AP Photo / David Goldman
An empty bench overlooks the Hudson River where Fernando Morales used to sit and eat tuna sandwiches with his younger brother, Adam Almonte, at Fort Tryon Park in New York, March 16, 2022. On the deadliest day of a horrific week in April 2020, COVID-19 took the lives of 816 people in New York City alone. Morales, 43, was one of them. – AP Photo / David Goldman
Adam Almonte sits on a bench overlooking the Hudson River where he used to sit and eat tuna sandwiches with his older brother, Fernando Morales, at Fort Tryon Park in New York, March 16, 2022. Walking through the park, Almonte visualizes long-ago days tossing a baseball with his brother and taking in the view from their bench. He replays old messages to just to hear Morales’ voice. “When he passed away it was like I lost a brother, a parent and a friend all at the same time,” says Almonte. “That’s an irreplaceable type of love.” – AP Photo / David Goldman
Samantha Shotzbarger,with the Top Stories desk, designed and constructed an immersive presentation featuring Goldman’s photos of empty spaces along with audio diaries from families of those lost. For the lead story,Shotzbarger used the text and Lum’s video vignettes,plus photos,to score impressively high reader engagement time on apnews.com. Audio also played well with AP’s radio clients.
Elise Ryan,with the digital news team,handled a sophisticated social promotion plan,helping the package emerge as one of the most popular on AP News throughout the weekend. The story also appeared on numerous U.S. front pages,both online and print; it will be republished and promoted when the Centers for Disease Control’s official toll hits 1 million. The video was used by customers including the Houston Chronicle,San Francisco Chronicle,and the Detroit News. Lum’s videos also attracted attention on Twitter,with a combined 123,000 views and counting.
Perhaps the greatest barometer of success came in the words of grateful loved ones of those featured in the stories:
— “The text explains loss,of course,but it highlights love.” — David Lawyer,son of Neil Lawyer. — “Thank you for all your hard work on the COVID article. … to think of the large scale … my mind can not really even grasp that.” — Cathie Quackenbush,wife of Larry Quackenbush. — “I feel like the great task of giving testimony and of mourning has been boosted,as if by some miraculous assist,to help me through this moment with pride,dignity and honor. You’ve done for me what I could not do for myself.” — Larry Mass,partner of Arnie Kantrowitz.
For bringing fresh eyes and new voice to a once-unimaginable loss that will shape the way we live for years to come,the team of Geller,Goldman,Lum,Johnson,Hollingsworth,Wong,Anderson, Shotzbarger and Ryan is AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner.
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