Some ... of many: Those we've lost to coronavirus
They are our friends, our neighbors; people of renown, and just regular people. "Sunday Morning" takes a moment to remember just a few of the victims of the COVID-19 pandemic:
Raymond Copeland (1973-2020)
A member of "New York's Strongest," sanitation worker Raymond Copeland raised three girls as a single father after the death of their mother. He and his fiancée, Tameka Robinson, who also worked in the city's Sanitation Department, had planned to buy a house together. Copeland became the first Sanitation Department employee to die of coronavirus in New York City.
A former school bus driver, Copeland grew ill after returning from a vacation in Aruba. His stepdaughter, Naeemah Seifullah, told The New York Times that his family planned to bring his ashes to the island.
Mike Huckaby (1966-2020)
The DJ and music producer was a pioneer in promoting techno artists in his native Detroit. While working as a buyer for a local record store, his superior taste in electronic, techno and house music extended his influence to international customers.
He also ran workshops and seminars. "This was a quintessential quality of Mike: He was ready to teach anyone who would listen," DJ Daniel Bell told The New York Times.
Below: A Mike Huckaby "strictly vinyl" set at The Lab in New York City, 2019:
Luis Sepúlveda (1949-2020)
The Chilean novelist and journalist was imprisoned for two-and-a-half years and tortured during the Pinochet dictatorship; he was later placed under house arrest, before escaping, finally landing in Ecuador. There, the former leader of the Communist student movement directed theatrical productions, and worked to raise literacy among Andean peasants.
He later joined a militant group in Nicaragua; traveled to Europe, where he worked as a journalist; and served as a crewmember on a Greenpeace ship, before settling in Spain.
He wrote more than a dozen novels and children's books (including "The Old Man Who Read Love Stories") and wrote or directed five shorts and feature films, including "Nowhere," about a nation ruled by a dictator, starring Harvey Keitel.
Katy and Emma Davis (c. 1983-2020)
Kay and Emma Davis were twin girls who lived together, who both became nurses, and who both contracted coronavirus.
"All they ever wanted to do was to help other people," their sister, Zoe, told BBC News. "Ever since they were young … they'd pretend they were doctors and nurses caring for their dolls."
They were among the more than 50 U.K. nursing staff members who have died from COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic.
John Pfahl (1939-2020)
A graduate of Syracuse University School of Art, Pfahl worked as an assistant for advertising and architectural photographers, before teaching at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He then embarked on a career that captured nature in stirring landscape images that were by turns formal and whimsical.
The conventions of landscape photography were humorously upended with his series titled "Picture Windows," for which he shot views through the windows of strangers' homes. "While making my 'picture window' photographs, I came to think that every room was like a gigantic camera forever pointed at the same view," he wrote in an artist's statement. And what of the homeowners' reactions to his odd request? "They expressed their desire to share their view with others, as if it were a nondepletable treasure," he wrote.
Sometimes the whimsy had a corrosive tint: nature cloaking the cloud-spewing stacks of power stations and nuclear plants, or the detritus of a compost pile.
His work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Museum of Modern Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston; and the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, among others.
Martin Douglas (1948-2020)
A steel-pan drummer and mentor to fellow Brooklyn musicians, Martin Douglas was the founder of the Crossfire Steel Orchestra, and president of the United States Steelband Association. Born in Trinidad, he worked in the Metropolitan Transit Authority and was a respected union member. But his most noted imprint was musical, working to expand the popularity of steel-pan music.
"He would start playing any time — it could be midnight, middle of the day, middle of the night," his youngest son, Jevon, told The New York Times. "Sometimes you would get mad: 'Don't you see what time it is?' He would do it his way."
Ann Sullivan (1929-2020)
The animation artist first joined Walt Disney's animation paint lab in the 1950s, before leaving to raise four children. But after returning to work at Hanna-Barbera and Filmation studios, Sullivan rejoined Disney, where she worked on such classics as "The Little Mermaid" and "The Lion King."
Other film credits include "Cool World," "Pocahontas," "Hercules," "Tarzan," "Fantasia 2000," "The Emperor's New Groove," "Lilo & Stitch," and "Treasure Planet."
Chaplain Dina Kuperstock, at the Motion Picture and Television Fund retirement home (where Sullivan resided), told the Hollywood Reporter that the woman nicknamed "Giggles" had the best laugh of any person she'd ever known: "Ann didn't just laugh with a sound. When she giggled, her whole body would shake and light up with joy, and it was contagious for everyone in the room."
Jun Maeda (1941-2020)
Maeda worked with experimental theater companies in his native Japan and, later, New York City, designing the sets of productions by such directors as Peter Brook, Thadeus Kantor, Ellen Stewart and Harvey Fierstein. The resident designer at La Mama Experimental Theatre Club, Maeda won the Obie Award in 1981.
"Maeda was one of a kind," director Andrei Serban told Deadline. "Since he arrived at La Mama, soon after me, he seemed from the beginning a mystery man and somehow remained so and now took that mystery away with him. But no one was more dedicated, more modest, more unobtrusive. No one was more gifted … He could have been one of the anonymous genius craftsmen who built the Pyramids."
Fred the Godson (1985-2020)
The DJ, rapper and lyricist (born Frederick Thompson) entered the Bronx rap scene in 2010, and the following year was named to the XXL Freshman Class list of rising stars. He would collaborate with such artists as Diddy, Lil' Kim, Pusha T, Mill, Jeremih, and "SNL" cast member Jay Pharoah.
Idris Bey (1959-2020)
A former Marine, Bey was an 27-year veteran of the New York City Fire Department, serving as an EMT and, later, an instructor. His ambulance was destroyed by the collapsing Twin Towers as he answered the calls on 9/11.
A voracious reader, Bey was also a devout Muslim. And for nearly two decades he taught classes at the Fire Department's training academy. "He was spontaneous, charismatic and hilarious," Sasha Gomez, a former student who later became an instructor, told The New York Times.
Takuo Aoyagi (1936-2020)
The Japanese engineer (whose cause of death has not been announced) designed a device to measure and calculate blood oxygen levels, called a pulse oximeter. The device, which clips onto a patient's finger to measures oxygen levels in the blood, has become an indispensable medical tool, particularly important in helping diagnose coronavirus patients whose other symptoms might not be so easily detected.
In 2015 Aoyagi became the first Japanese recipient of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' medal for innovations in health care technology.
Bruce Stern (1939-2020)
A podiatrist who lived in West Orange, N.J., Bruce Stern was also a lifelong Yankees fan, an enthusiast of Sunday morning softball and tennis, and both a teacher and student at Fairleigh Dickenson University's FILL program for lifelong learning.
Story produced by Robert Marston. Editor: David Bhagat.
