FIRST THERE WERE TWO. Covid-19 came to Monterey County in March 2020, with the first two cases announced by Monterey County Health Officer Edward Moreno on March 17. But before that announcement, there was anticipation. The East Coast was already in the throes of the pandemic, and news was flooded with stories and images of hospitals in New York City being overwhelmed by the crush of patients needing serious medical intervention, and of bodies piling up when that intervention failed.
“It’s not a matter of if,” Moreno told a Weekly reporter just days earlier, “it’s a matter of when.”
On, March 17, our when arrived.
What was only a year ago now seems like a lifetime ago – a year of frustration, a year of worry and, sometimes, a year of despair. Those first two cases, which Moreno told reporters who assembled at a hastily arranged press conference, were believed to have been acquired by two residents who had traveled abroad, quickly became four. Then four became eight and eight became 16 and on and on and on.
A year of wearing masks, of keeping away from friends and even family, a year of hand washing. A year of takeout and parklets. A year of mixed and muddled messaging as the federal government flailed and failed at stemming the pandemic.
A year of working from home for some, a year of not working at all for others and a year of having to go to work because you were deemed “essential.”
We began to mark the milestones, first in the number of cases, and then, in the number of deaths – the first death came just days into the county’s shelter-in-place order, when “an adult with an underlying health condition” died on March 21. By that day, there were 11 confirmed cases in the county.
Covid, the virus that could seemingly strike down anyone, hit the Latino farmworker community most ruthlessly, a “disparate impact,” as the Health Department put it, in populations that lack access to adequate nutrition, housing, medical care, education and equal treatment under the law. Of the 42,575 confirmed cases in Monterey County as of March 15, 2021, Latinos accounted for 70.5 percent of hospitalizations and 59.4 percent of the fatalities. It blew through the state’s prison system too, with over 49,000 cases and 215 deaths among inmates – one raid by guards on Black inmates at the Correctional Training Facility in Soledad led to more than 2,700 cases and 17 deaths. The reason? The guards refused to provide the inmates with masks when they removed them from their cells, and placed them all in a dining hall.
Over the past year, the Weekly has published more than 700 stories about Covid – stories of disparate impact, of business and tourism impact, of coping. We have, as we’ve been able, published stories of some who have died.
But every death from Covid is notable, and every family left behind has a story to tell. Monterey County has reached 337 deaths as of press time. We can’t write about every death – some family members don’t want to speak, others can’t be found. But what follows are the stories of just some who have died, told through the eyes of those they left behind.
Craig Hemphill, Nov. 13, 2020
He spotted her across the room, at a dance event at Chautauqua Hall in 2006. Every third dance, he would approach her and ask her to take the floor with him.
A day later, knowing only her first name and where she worked, Craig Hemphill called the Pacific Grove Library, asked for Jean and when she came to the phone, said, “Do you remember me from last night?”
Of course she did, Jean Chapin says. From that time on, they were rarely apart, attending dances together (he favored ballroom style while she gravitated toward contra), traveling the world – his daughter works at Care International in Malawi, and the couple visited her in Africa – and making plans for trips to come. They married in November 2018.
“We spent a lot of time walking, and a lot of time dancing,” she says.
Hemphill retired from his job at Mr. Z’s Jewelry in Pacific Grove, while Chapin continued working at the library. But Hemphill grew bored with being a househusband, and took to driving for Uber, combining his other loves – cars and talking to people.
“He was very social and he loved to drive,” she says. “I think that’s what got him. But we don’t know. We don’t know for sure.”
Chapin retired last August – “a crazy time because there was nothing to do” – and she and Hemphill went for a lot of walks and did a lot of yard work.
And they continued to plan.
“We had so many plans. So many plans. We were going to do all these things together,” Chapin says. “All of these things we were going to do as soon as the pandemic ends.”
Hemphill developed a fever, and then malaise. He was tired all the time, and awaiting the results of a Covid test, he called his doctor, who told him, “Don’t stop here, go to the hospital,” Chapin says.
He was there for three weeks. Chapin, who also developed Covid during that time, communicated with him via WhatsApp and WebX and text.
Then he was placed on a ventilator. After Chapin recovered, she was allowed in to hold Hemphill’s hand before he died.
“I had hoped, right up until the last minute, even though the doctors were trying to prepare me,” she says. “What really came home to me is when you get married, or in any relationship, one of you is going to go first. It’s built into the marriage ceremony – ‘until death.’ Death is going to part you.”
He died less than a week before their third wedding anniversary. (MD)
Jose Ornelas Cendejas, May 19, 2020
Jose Ornelas Cendejas’ wish for his death was that there’d be a mariachi band at his funeral. “My brother loved to sing,” says his younger sister, Susana Ornelas Zendejas (a paperwork error led to different spellings of their last names). But when he died of acute respiratory distress syndrome and Covid-19 at Natividad on May 19, 2020, at the age of 55, pandemic restrictions made this kind of celebration impossible. Covid has made other parts of the mourning process much more difficult, too.
Susana says how hard it is to believe that he is really gone. “I couldn’t believe that that was him,” she says of seeing his ashes. How can a big, funny, karaoke-loving, soccer-coaching, hardworking man fit in such a small box?
Susana chuckles, just a little, when asked about Jose’s personality. “He was really stubborn,” she says. But he was the good kind of stubborn, she insists – when he wanted something he’d do anything to make it happen. That determination served him well in his career – he and a partner built their own business selling hair products door to door at salons from Santa Maria to San Jose. “He would sell anything,” Susana says. “Give him a rock and he would sell it for you and he would get a really good price.”
Jose is survived by an extensive family, almost all of whom live, as he did, in Soledad. They hope to host a mariachi band in his honor when the pandemic is over. (TCL)
Jesus Ortiz Ramirez, Sept. 19, 2020 Javier Ortiz, Sept. 25, 2020
Jesus Ortiz Ramirez came to the U.S. from Ocampo, Guanajuato Mexico as a teenager, 16 or 17, and went right to work in the lettuce fields of the Salinas Valley. “My dad never really complained,” says Julia Durán. “My dad was a provider and that was enough for him. He never missed a day, he was a really hardworking person.”
Ramirez and his wife, Beatriz, were a team, with Beatriz at home caring for their four children: Durán, Beatriz Smith, Javier and Jesus. When Ramirez retired, Beatriz went to work and they switched roles, with Ramirez becoming the primary caretaker of Javier, who was born with Down syndrome. He got his son ready every morning before getting on the bus to school.
“My dad was a very peaceful and calm man, he was just happy all the time. I can’t say he was ever grouchy,” Duran says. “He just wanted everybody to get along within our family.”
Family was paramount to Ramirez. He traveled to Mexico to visit his brothers and sisters. One of the greatest moments of his life was a few years ago when he and Beatriz celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, the first time that all the family from Mexico came together in one place.
In retirement, Ramirez stayed busy. “I called him my carpenter ant,” Durán says. “He could never sit still, always planting something, trimming something.” Besides working in the yard, Ramirez enjoyed talking with friends, which is something he got to do a lot at the Big Red Barn and Skyview flea markets, where he and Beatriz ran booths selling used items, working as a team. He was in charge of jeans and tools, she handled pots and pans.
Their son Javier was in many ways like his dad. “My brother Javi, he was like the happiest person on earth,” Durán says. “He never complained”
Javier was only supposed to live until age 16, Durán says, but despite his many medical conditions, he thrived. He was active in the Special Olympics as a swimmer. He loved going to Social Vocational Services and to school every day, as well as his work program. Celebrations and parties were important to Javier – as soon as one birthday was over, he’d immediately announce whose was next. He loved listening to Selena and Michael Jackson. “And he loved going to Chili’s,” Durán says. “He loved his hamburger.” He and his mom and dad went out to eat every Sunday, up until the start of the pandemic.
It was hard for Javier to understand at first why he couldn’t go out to dinner or to school once Covid-19 began. Instead of his dad getting him on the bus every morning, the family stayed home. SVS brought packages to the house each week with activities or meals. But, “just like all of us, he was tired of being home,” Durán says.
The entire family had Covid at the same time, after Ramirez became ill, then Beatriz and Ortiz. Duran and her sister became caretakers and got infected as well.
Father and son were hospitalized, and never left. Ramirez died on Sept. 19, then Javier died six days later.
“We’re at peace, because they went together,” Durán says. “They were best buddies.” (PM)
Anthony Garcia, Jan. 19, 2021
It’s a quintessential big brother story, Charlie Garcia says. He had done something dumb, said something to a girl and the girl’s boyfriend was hunting him down and edging for a fight.
Enter big brother Anthony Garcia, who “ended up getting into the fight and he solved the problem right there,” Charlie says.
The older he got, the more in touch with his feminine side he got, Charlie says. Anthony was the middle brother in a large family, with two older sisters and two younger brothers who were so close in age they may as well have been triplets.
“He was a caring guy, an open-armed guy. He always accepted people who weren’t accepted and brought people from down to up and made them smile and laugh,” Charlie says. “He was amazing. He was a guy you wanted to be around.”
Anthony drove for UPS, a career into which his two sons, Dennis and Nicholas, followed him. He was also a music enthusiast, a dance enthusiast and a motorcycle enthusiast – as a teenager, he formed a break dancing group called Side by Side with his brothers. In 2006, he founded the group SoulRiderz. A UPS caravan and a large group of motorcyclists turned out for his memorial service.
Anthony Garcia had gastric bypass surgery about 10 years ago, Charlie says, and developed stomach bleeding while battling Covid. He got seriously ill on New Year’s Day, went into the hospital and died 19 days later.
It was the second sibling death in the Garcia family – their older sister, Dorthea TogoTogo, died in 2017. In addition to his parents, children and remaining siblings, Anthony Garcia left behind a fiance, Christine, and six stepdaughters. (MD)
Sergio Caldera, June 29, 2020
As the children of an agricultural supervisor, the four Caldera siblings grew up moving seasonally back and forth between Yuma, Arizona and Santa Maria until their high school years, when they started moving to Salinas instead. It was there that the eldest of the four, Sergio Caldera, attended high school and where the family established a permanent home.
They stayed close and regularly met for weekend barbecues; Caldera was especially close with his sister, Maribel, just a year younger. When they were kids, people used to call them twins.
“He was a very lovable, funny person,” Maribel says. “He knew about everything. You could start a conversation with him about anything – politics, sports – he said he was a walking encyclopedia.”
Caldera died on June 29 from complications due to Covid-19. He was 46.
He never showed symptoms the family might have identified as Covid. He was tired for a week, Maribel says, but that was it. The family pod got together on Father’s Day, and that night Maribel couldn’t sleep due to a full-body ache and nausea. Those were her only symptoms, and they went away after just a day, but she and Sergio went to get tested for Covid-19 anyway. By the time their results came back positive, he was gone.
After having sudden trouble breathing, an ambulance brought him to Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital, where he died two days later.
Caldera worked as a shipping and receiving supervisor for Chiquita. “He was really focused on his work, he loved his work,” Maribel says. Chiquita had offered him a job in Florida – something he’d been seriously considering, except it would have taken him away from his close-knit family.
Caldera lived with his parents, Jesús and Silvia. He was the only one of the four siblings (Cesar and Ivan are the younger brothers) who never got married and started a family, which meant he was apt to focus on his seven nieces and nephews, taking them to the movies and out to eat. Sergio was the godfather of Maribel’s eldest son, and the rest of his nieces and nephews all took to calling him nino, Spanish for godfather.
“He spoiled them, in a good way,” Maribel says. “He’s the uncle who, if you don’t have kids and you have a good job, your money’s going to go to your nephews.”
After he died, Maribel and her family moved in with her parents to help them as they move through their grief. “It’s hard without him,” she says. “But we’re still really close.” (SR)
Debbie Aguilar, Jan. 21, 2021
Debbie Aguilar devoted much of her life to advocating for those who had died and the family members who outlive them. After losing her own son, Stephen, to gun violence in 2002, she became an outspoken and prominent leader in Salinas, urging officials to resolve cold cases in the interest of justice for victims of crime, and also hosting vigils for families to keep the memories of their loved ones present.
Aguilar died from complications due to Covid-19 while being treated at Natividad. She was 60 years old.
Aguilar refused to let people forget about her son, or the unique form of grief that unsolved murders can create. And through it all, she exuded passion, often becoming emotional and choking up during remarks, but always remaining poised and sticking to her message: That we should stop violence from claiming more lives.
She founded a coalition called “100 Mothers,” which held vigils and rallies throughout the region. On the advocacy side, her group A Time for Grieving and Healing repeatedly brought dozens of families of murder victims to Sacramento during National Victims’ Rights Week.
Pamela Patterson, manager of Monterey County’s Victim-Witness Assistance Program, met Aguilar just after Stephen was murdered. Until she became ill, Patterson says Aguilar would regularly call if she heard about a homicide in the news, and offer up her contact information to surviving family members to help them get through their grief.
“When I first met her, it was during a very difficult time,” Patterson says. “Some people, they go through these horrible events in their life, and I see them years later and they’re still broken. Debbie really rose to the occasion and became a leader.”
She persisted in seeking a resolution to her son’s murder (a resolution never came), but she also championed ideas fundamental to restorative justice, meeting with prison inmates in search of common ground.
County Supervisor Luis Alejo says he hopes people who knew Aguilar honor her mission by continuing to advocate for justice. “The best way to honor her legacy is for us to pick up that torch that Debbie left behind.” (SR)
Merilyn Faye Baldwin, Jan. 15, 2021
At the age of 96, Carmel resident Merilyn Faye Baldwin was still as sharp as a tack. But after she broke her leg last year and could no longer bear weight on it, she moved into the care facility Carmel Hills, where she joined her husband of 77 years, Bill. Having raised six children, who then gave the couple 13 grandchildren and 18 great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren (with one more on the way) there was no shortage of visitors.
Then came Covid. Bill died in June. Their daughter, Pamela Klaumann, says the family used a workaround so visits could continue: Most afternoons, Pamela or other family would stand outside Merilyn’s window and they would chat on the phone and look at each other through the glass.
When Covid hit the care facility, “she wasn’t scared, but she knew it was serious,” Klaumann says. She wasn’t even scared when on Jan. 2, she tested positive for the virus. “I asked her how she was feeling about it,” Klaumann says. “‘I think I’m OK. I don’t have any symptoms,’ she said.”
And then came pneumonia. When she was moved from her regular room to a Covid unit, the window visits continued. But with no phone in the room, she used a white board to communicate with her mom.
“She stayed positive for as long as she could. But in the last week, she had such difficulty breathing and she knew she was in trouble,” Klaumann says. Hospice was called in, and Klaumann was outside the window, the nurse rubbing her mother’s back, and washing her face and combing her hair, when Merilyn died on Jan. 15.
Klaumann says her parents provided their children with an idyllic childhood in an idyllic setting, moving to Carmel in 1957 when the kids all played outside, nobody locked their doors and the neighbors watched out for each other. And when the last of her children went to school, Merilyn went to work, as an office manager and medical assistant. “We were lucky to have our parents as long as we did,” Klaumann says. (MD)
Eugene Martinez, Nov. 6, 2020
Defense attorney Eugene Martinez was a teddy bear of a man outside of court, his friends say, always upbeat, always with a kind word, always the life of the party.
Inside court? Watch your behind, because if you were on the opposing side, he was likely going to kick it, and kick it hard. He possessed a formidable intellect, a Stanford Law School pedigree and the innate ability to outthink and outlawyer and outspeak his opponent. He put the interests of his clients first, always, and always through the lens of their right to a fair trial.
He almost became a veterinarian. But after being arrested in 1968 at a Vietnam War protest with other San Francisco State University students, and facing two cops who lied on the stand that he had assaulted them (he was acquitted by a jury) he focused on the law, having seen firsthand how the system could wreck a life when that system goes wrong.
At various times, he practiced with both of his children – daughter Anna and son Mario – while his wife of 44 years, Luisa, ran the office.
He became ill in mid-September, and spent a week at home before going to the hospital because his symptoms were worsening. He never came home.
The family communicated with him via text message, and hospital staff rolled in a video screen to try to make sure he didn’t feel isolated. “For a man like that, who needed to be around his family… It was stressful going without physical contact,” Mario says.
His father lamented that in today’s justice system, appreciation for the spoken word has diminished.
“He was a unique orator who got better as he spoke. The longer an argument went on, the more forceful he became,” he says. “He was a staunch defender and such a hard worker. He really cared about his clients.” (MD)
Angel Silva Vasquez, July 2, 2020
When Sabrina Flores thinks about her uncle Angel Silva Vasquez, she remembers his laugh and his very particular gifts. For every family gathering, he’d buy scratchers from a local King City liquor store for everyone. “He would tell everyone to try their luck,” Flores says. “He was the character of the family.”
The last scratcher Flores received from her uncle was on Mother’s Day in 2020. “I actually won something,” she says with a laugh. “That was the first time.”
Born in Jamaica, Michoacán, Mexico but raised in King City, Vasquez worked in agriculture all his life. He worked his way up from hand-harvesting to operating tractors. Sometimes he’d work seven days of the week. His work was integral to his life. It meant he had money to spend on his kids – his priority. “My grandparents would always tell him not to waste all his money on his kids. But he gave everything to them,” Flores says. “He wouldn’t buy new clothes or new shoes for himself. It was always for his kids.”
He adored both his immediate and extended family and visited Flores’ mother (his sister) often. When the pandemic came, however, the family get-togethers stopped.
But then, Vasquez’s parents became sick with Covid-19. When he wasn’t working, he was tending to his aging parents in their shared home. Two weeks after they got better, he began showing symptoms of Covid himself.
By Father’s Day, he had to be hospitalized. “That was the last time I saw him in person,” Flores says.
She called constantly to see how he was doing. True to his upbeat personality, he told her and the rest of the family not to worry about him. “I think he told us not to worry because he knew he wasn’t going to make it,” Flores says.
Vasquez died 11 days after he was hospitalized. He was 50 years old.
Flores and her family visit his gravesite every Sunday to leave flowers. Etched on his gravestone are tractors, just like the ones he drove for a living. He is survived by his four children and an extended family. (MA)
Mike Cole, Jan. 8, 2021
Everyone at the Chamisal Tennis Club in Corral de Tierra called Mike Cole “Grandpa Tuna.” The nickname started out years ago as “Kahuna Tuna,” then over the years – and as new grandchildren were added to the Cole family – it became Grandpa Tuna. The family has no idea how it got started.
“We tried to figure out what the origin story was. Now we’re joking about it like it’s a superhero story,” son Bob Cole says. It’s possible that the nickname got started after Mike visited Hawaii, but he’s not sure. “It’s one of those funny things, you get a nickname and it sticks.”
It could be another Hawaiian connection, the Aloha spirit of welcoming, a spirit that Mike displayed throughout his life, whether as one of the founders of the Chamisal Tennis Club, co-owner and president of H&H Home and Craft Center – a hardware store in Seaside and a precursor to the big box stores – or as a board member of the Carmel Valley Gem and Mineral Society.
“As a person, he was somebody who really cared that you felt welcome wherever you were. That showed up in his work and that’s a lesson I learned from him as well,” Bob says.
Mike was a nationally ranked tennis player, made beautiful jewelry from stones he collected, cut and polished himself, played banjo and drove his restored 1962 VW Type 3 single cab pickup named “Bonnie.” Most of all, he loved playing with his grandchildren.
He was born in Carmel on Aug. 15, 1943, to Rose Funchess Dodd and Clarence Dodd. Clarence died when Mike was young, and Rose remarried Ewell Cole, who became his father. Mike graduated from Carmel High School in 1961 and joined the Navy at age 17. He returned to Monterey and went to Monterey Peninsula College while working at Carmel Lumber. After working at M&S Building Supply, he went on to co-own and lead H&H.
He died on Jan. 8 due to complications from Covid-19. He is survived by his wife, Carolyn; sons Bob and Ted, their wives and five grandchildren; brothers Jim Dodd and Buzz; and sisters Marilyn and Peggy McMahan. (PM)