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They met in Hawaii and built a life in rural Maryland. This fall, they died two days apart.
Hat tip, the print edition of Saturday's Washington Post, which I saw at the library.
Local
They met in Hawaii and built a life in rural Maryland. This fall, they died two days apart.
By Lola Fadulu
Oct. 27, 2020 at 1:53 p.m. EDT
Jacob and Doris Bender met in Hawaii in the 1950s. Jacob was in Honolulu, serving in the Army, and Doris, who had grown up in the state, worked as a barber. ... They married, had three children and moved to Sharpsburg, Md., where they spent the rest of their lives.
Jacob — whose full name was Jacob Edward “Jake” Bender Jr. — worked at Jamison Door Co. for most of his life, and Doris landed the second chair at a barbershop in Sharpsburg — a big deal at a time when few women, let alone women of color, were allowed to cut men’s hair. ... When the chief barber retired, Doris took over the first chair. She knew everyone, said her grandson, Jeffrey Grim. ... “When she was in the hospital, her respiratory therapist said, ‘Did you cut hair?’ and she was like, ‘Yeah,’?” Grim recalled in an interview, describing Doris’s hospitalization for covid-19 this summer. The respiratory therapist then said, “?‘My dad used to take me to you when I was a little boy.’?”
Doris Bender died of complications of the novel coronavirus on Sept. 3, in Room 4107 of Meritus Medical Center Intensive Care Unit in Robinwood. Jacob had died Sept. 1 in the same hospital, also of covid-19, in Room 4109. ... Jacob, who was 83, died at 2:36 p.m. Doris, 81, died at 2:34 p.m.
“Two days apart, two minutes apart, two rooms apart,” said Grim, a PhD candidate at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. “It’s really hard to lose both of them at the same time. My family will never be the same. And they were old, but I think we would have had a lot more years with them, if it wasn’t for covid.”
{snip}
Doris would have turned 82 last week. The family didn’t come together to observe her birthday out of safety concerns. But Grim and his brother, Josh, bought anthuriums, a tropical flower their grandmother loved, to put on her grave.
{snip}
Lola Fadulu
Lola Fadulu is a reporting fellow covering health for the local desk. She previously covered federal safety-net programs for the New York Times. Follow https://twitter.com/lfadulu
They met in Hawaii and built a life in rural Maryland. This fall, they died two days apart.
By Lola Fadulu
Oct. 27, 2020 at 1:53 p.m. EDT
Jacob and Doris Bender met in Hawaii in the 1950s. Jacob was in Honolulu, serving in the Army, and Doris, who had grown up in the state, worked as a barber. ... They married, had three children and moved to Sharpsburg, Md., where they spent the rest of their lives.
Jacob — whose full name was Jacob Edward “Jake” Bender Jr. — worked at Jamison Door Co. for most of his life, and Doris landed the second chair at a barbershop in Sharpsburg — a big deal at a time when few women, let alone women of color, were allowed to cut men’s hair. ... When the chief barber retired, Doris took over the first chair. She knew everyone, said her grandson, Jeffrey Grim. ... “When she was in the hospital, her respiratory therapist said, ‘Did you cut hair?’ and she was like, ‘Yeah,’?” Grim recalled in an interview, describing Doris’s hospitalization for covid-19 this summer. The respiratory therapist then said, “?‘My dad used to take me to you when I was a little boy.’?”
Doris Bender died of complications of the novel coronavirus on Sept. 3, in Room 4107 of Meritus Medical Center Intensive Care Unit in Robinwood. Jacob had died Sept. 1 in the same hospital, also of covid-19, in Room 4109. ... Jacob, who was 83, died at 2:36 p.m. Doris, 81, died at 2:34 p.m.
“Two days apart, two minutes apart, two rooms apart,” said Grim, a PhD candidate at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. “It’s really hard to lose both of them at the same time. My family will never be the same. And they were old, but I think we would have had a lot more years with them, if it wasn’t for covid.”
{snip}
Doris would have turned 82 last week. The family didn’t come together to observe her birthday out of safety concerns. But Grim and his brother, Josh, bought anthuriums, a tropical flower their grandmother loved, to put on her grave.
{snip}
Lola Fadulu
Lola Fadulu is a reporting fellow covering health for the local desk. She previously covered federal safety-net programs for the New York Times. Follow https://twitter.com/lfadulu