Profiles of a pandemic: Western New Yorkers lost to Covid-19

Louvenia “Lou Lou” Henderson, a woman of faith and a proud single mother of three from the Town of Tonawanda, became the sixth person in Erie County to die from Covid-19.

And yet, she was being so careful not to catch the virus.

One night last week, Valerie Monahan looked at her husband of 50 years – the Vietnam veteran, the grandfather of three, the Eucharistic minister, the docent at Buffalo’s naval museum – and noticed his fingertips were purple.

"I am not a medical person, but I said, 'You are not getting oxygen,' " she recalled in an interview Thursday. After the ambulance crew hurried her husband to Kenmore Mercy Hospital, she thought he would recover from pneumonia, or bronchitis, or whatever was sapping him of air, and return home.

Even when they attached her husband to a ventilator at Buffalo General Medical Center, Karen Catalano remained hopeful.

Her mind fast-forwarded 28 days – to a successful end to the ventilator regimen. She pictured the two of them spending more time together, perhaps taking dance lessons or visiting the beach near their home in Angola.

Rita Faber was in otherwise good health for a 90-year-old. But she fell Friday in her apartment at a complex for seniors.

Doctors at Mercy Hospital in South Buffalo checked her out. She had no broken bones or lasting damage, the doctors reported to her son, Stephen Faber.

Raised during the Great Depression, Luigi D'Orazio learned how to do things for himself.

After growing up on a farm, he became so adept at plumbing, electrical work and carpentry that he built the home on Grand Island in which he raised his family.

With no other way to mourn, John Pijanowski wrote the tribute at his kitchen counter. He is a professor of education at the University of Arkansas, a Brown University graduate "whose research focuses on how people translate moral thinking into moral action, self care, and leadership development," as his official university bio puts it.

He is also the son of Don Pijanowski, a Buffalo guy who spent his life working with machines. "His hands always had rough fingers, kind of thick but strong, with the fingernails worn down into pads," said John, 50, who vividly recalls the sense of warmth and safety whenever his dad put those hands on his youngest son's shoulders.

Ronald Peoples never knew he had the Covid-19 virus.

By the time his test results came back, the 86-year-old retired Buffalo Public Schools educator was hooked up to a ventilator at Millard Fillmore Hospital and was falling in and out of consciousness, according to his children.

Cyril J. Alessi was all things Buffalo. He grew up on the West Side, and when he worked at his father's business, Tommy's Tire Shop, on Niagara Street, he fixed truck tires that were sometimes taller than he was.

After serving in the Army, he sold cars and then went into the restaurant business. He opened a Ruby's restaurant in downtown Buffalo when downtown had department stores, followed by a Ruby's at Boulevard Mall.

Robin Steck can't say enough about the doctors and nurses at Sisters of Charity Hospital, St. Josephs Campus, but her gratitude can't mask the ugly, unfair realities of her husband's death.

"All that keeps going through my head is that he died alone," she said Saturday. 'There wasn't anything he wouldn't do for anyone. He was a good man. He didn't deserve this."

Catherine Phillips-Russ of Kenmore knew how to revive a weary spirit, according to her daughter, Elizabeth Curtis.

Phillips-Russ, a longtime administrator with Erie 1 Board of Cooperative Educational Services, might accomplish the feat with a bouquet of flowers, a home-cooked meal or a few kind words for the frazzled or downtrodden.

The story of Covid-19's effects on Western New York has largely been one of mind-numbing data, provided day after day on a national, state, county and even municipal level.

But Sunday's death notices in The Buffalo News told a very different one: that of at least seven individuals who died of the disease, and Covid-19 was listed as the cause.

Renee Williams led a simple life with her husband and three children, living in their ranch-style home in Clarence Center for more than 50 years.

“We were not well-to-do whatsoever growing up,” said Renee Sliwinski, Williams’ oldest child. “But one of the things she’s always enjoyed was Letchworth. She loved going down there as a child, and that would become our pilgrimage. Walking down to the lower falls and the flume was the cat’s meow for her.”

Even at 66, Denise Grenier of Buffalo liked to work.

Her son Robin said she was recruited years ago to be the officer manager for Amstar of Western New York, a painting company in Cheektowaga.

A former superintendent of Eden schools died of complications from coronavirus Wednesday, less than a week after he was among 41 residents of Father Baker Manor to test positive for Covid-19.

Donald D. Fregelette, 88, was believed to be the first Covid-19 death connected to the Orchard Park nursing home, where 25 employees also tested positive for the virus.

Aug. 15, 1924 – April 8, 2020

Shirley Dell’Amico, who in mid-life earned college degrees and had a lengthy career as a counselor for marginalized people, died April 8 at Garden Gate Nursing Home in Cheektowaga. She was 95.

As confirmed Covid-19 cases multiplied at the Father Baker Manor nursing home in Orchard Park, Grace D'Angelo Tutton's first test for the deadly virus came back negative.

That was on April 4. Two days later, Tutton had a fever and the following day her doctor reported she tested positive for Covid-19, said daughter Judy Manchester-Vassie.

Kenneth Whigham Sr. loved sports. It didn't matter whether they were professional, amateur or youth league level.

"He was a huge Bills fan, and he also was a youth football coach for the Buffalo Vets for 10 years,” said his cousin, Vince Staples. “And then, after coaching, he became one of our administrators with the Buffalo Vets."

As a boy growing up in South Buffalo some 70 years ago, Salvatore Sedita looked up to his sister, who was nine years older.

Mary took him places, helped care for him, and had his back.

The grieving family of 77-year-old Ellen E. Booker, who died of Covid-19 on Friday in a Cheektowaga nursing home, called on the state Health Department to publicly identify nursing homes where the virus has spread and disclose the number of cases at each facility.

Under pressure from the family and media, the McGuire Group on Tuesday released the number of novel coronavirus cases at Garden Gate Health Care Facility, where Booker lived, and at two of its other local nursing homes that have reported cases.

This was always Ronald Wagner’s busy time of year.

After retiring from the railroad, he opened a tax preparation business. So he was in the office a lot in the run-up to April 15.

Anthony Olivieri liked physical work almost as much as he liked people.

And Olivieri, a lifelong Buffalonian who died Monday at age 92 from Covid-19 at Garden Gate Health Care Facility in Cheektowaga, was liked by many.

Feb. 17, 1939 – April 15, 2020

"John Pfahl could make even a heap of garbage look beautiful."

Thomas E. Cullen, known worldwide as a rare book collector and dealer, worried he was vulnerable to Covid-19.

Cullen, 86, was in a nursing home, couldn’t walk and had diabetes – all of which increased his risk of catching the virus and dying from it.

Edward C. "Ed" Ortiz – part of the original Slo-Pokes group that started the races in a Niagara County field in the 1950s that led to Ransomville Speedway – lost count of the number of victory laps he'd taken during his three decades of competition. Then he and his children tallied his wins and learned that he had exactly 199.

Mr. Ortiz was 66 and had been retired from racing for 17 years at the time, but his children, including his sons Jipper and Ed, both racers, convinced him to try for a final win. So in 1998, Mr. Ortiz got behind the wheel of Jipper's DIRT Pro Stock car for one more shot at Ransomville Speedway. He placed second in the 20-lap race and was happy enough.

Charles “Big Wheelie” Vicario Jr. had rock ‘n’ roll in his soul.

The leather-clad frontman became a fixture on local stages for nearly 50 years, leading his band “the Hubcaps” through oldies medleys that brought audiences to their feet.

Pamela McCrory was the kind of person who made everyone better just by knowing her.

She had a strong work ethic, a giddy laugh and a generous and caring heart.

L. Carol Miceli turned her love of sewing into a business that helped pay the bills as she and her husband, a letter carrier, raised their three children in the Town of Tonawanda.

The former L. Carol Yunke, a native of Buffalo’s Fruit Belt neighborhood, could walk into a drapery store, study the design of the window treatments and go home and create the same drapes and valances.

Aug. 23, 1932 – April 19, 2020

Bruce D. Burr spent 36 years working at Smallwood Drive School in Snyder – most of it as principal – before retiring in 1994.

Joseph A. Palmeri was a high school science teacher who was fascinated by worlds far beyond our own.

On clear nights, he would spend hours outside his City of Tonawanda home, gazing through one of his many telescopes at the stars and planets.

Ninety-eight percent of the Covid-19 deaths in New York State involve people 40 years old or older.

Danielle N. Frank-Sasiadek, 39, a mother of two, including an 11-year-old son, was among the exceptions, one of only five Erie County residents under 40 to die from the virus.

Richard Charles Canazzi survived the Vietnam War and the exposure to Agent Orange that led to his Parkinson's disease.

He survived a year of being shuttled around to different hospitals and rehab centers.

Mark Schroeder poured himself into his interests, from hockey and pop culture to work and most of all, his children.

Schroeder died from Covid-19 at Buffalo General Medical Center on April 22 after being hospitalized for heart surgery. He was 54.

Two weeks ago, Steve Robinson developed a cough.

After he tested positive for Covid-19 and was discharged from Mercy Hospital of Buffalo, the 62-year-old Robinson died in his South Buffalo home on April 23.

James Little loved it whenever he shared a shift with John Poleon at the Buffalo General Medical Center, reverence he boils down to a thought Little knows his colleagues would embrace.

“In a lot of ways,” he said, “it was like working with your grandpa.”

Thomas Wetzen had a long, successful career as an Akron Central Schools teacher and coach, leading its baseball and football teams to multiple championships.

But there was much more to Wetzen than sports titles.

Joe Pitts started getting sick the first weekend in April.

He was admitted to Buffalo General Medical Center a few days later and spent 17 days on a ventilator in intensive care as he battled Covid-19. The last call to his family came April 24. Nurses put the phone up to Joe's ear. Family members prayed.

Jose Rivera filled his life by helping people, as a medic in the U.S. Navy, as a volunteer building Habitat for Humanity homes and as a union safety officer at General Mills in Buffalo.

"We’d be driving and see someone who needed help. It was instinctive that either one of us would pull over," said Maureen Rivera, his wife of 15 years. "He had an infectious smile, and a unique way of making anyone feel comfortable.”

About 20 of Patricia Rowe's children and grandchildren celebrated her 94th birthday with a party in the atrium at Beechwood Homes in Getzville in late February.

It was a special time, with youngsters able to run around, and Rowe watching them with delight.

The owner of three German Shepherd dogs over roughly 40 years, Caroline M. "Carol" Fields was affectionately called "the German Shepherd lady" by her Riverside neighbors.

"That was how people knew her," said North Common Council Member Joseph Golombek.

The last time Cheryl Wind saw her grandmother, Arline Yaw, was on March 1.

"She walked me to the door at the nursing home," Wind said.

Oct. 16, 1928 – April 30, 2020

For Fraser Mitchell Mooney of Snyder, medical care ran in the family.

Rita Thurston was a constant presence at Kenmore United Methodist Church for decades, working with youth groups, supporting educational efforts in underserved communities and attending Sunday adult education class.

“She wasn’t showy. She wasn’t a person who drew attention to herself. She was kind of a servant who would do anything you asked her to do. She didn’t have to be in charge,” said the Rev. Gail Lewis, a former associate pastor at the church.

Edward Crogan wasn't the typical local lacrosse star of the 1950s and 1960s.

Although he played on primarily Native American teams, Crogan and his brother Sam were Buffalo natives who were introduced to the game after their father married a Tuscarora Indian Reservation woman.

During almost 29 years as a federal probation officer, Joseph D. Parkinson developed an unusual relationship with some of Western New York’s notorious criminals.

Some of them were men of violence – drug dealers and mobsters, out on bail or under supervised release – and he was always on his guard when he visited them.

Concetta Pierro loved to sit in the front row during Masses at St. Amelia Catholic Church, beaming with pride as her son – the Rev. Sebastian "Sibby" Pierro – delivered his sermons.

And she was enormously proud of her other son, Joseph, a doctor of radiology, and of five other family members who work as doctors or nurses.

Oct. 22, 1944 – May 6, 2020

Lorena “Lori” McDonald, active as a costume designer, director and fundraiser in Buffalo theaters, died May 6 in Southbury, Conn., from complications of Covid-19 after a period of declining health. She was 75.

Joan Neudecker hated to get sick, her daughter said, largely because it kept her from the work she loved, caring for patients at the McAuley Residence in Kenmore.

But in late April, Neudecker tested positive for Covid-19, her daughter Kathryn Kitchen said. She suspects, as her mother did, that she caught it at work.

Francis A. Kennedy’s habitual tinkering led to inventing a telephone caller ID device in the 1970s and a patented insulated concrete block that’s been used in more than 200 commercial buildings in the Northeast.

Kennedy never formally studied engineering, but he enjoyed reading about inventions and thinking up ideas for products that might be an improvement over what was available.

William J. Pujolas thought nothing of getting up at 5 a.m. to chauffeur his daughter and her friends to the local ice rink for figure skating practice.

He loved sports and was willing to go the extra mile, Liz Pujolas said of her father.

As a boy, William L. Burch would have been the geek or the nerd of his generation, said one of his three sons.

He liked to deep dive into a topic, or the latest technology, and then tell others what he had learned, Roger Burch explained.

Dennis G. Golombek didn’t have just one career.

He had three: newspaper reporter, sheriff's deputy and art teacher.

The first line in the email said everything.

"Buffalo lost a part of its soul yesterday with the passing of Joseph Giambra," a family representative wrote in a note about the death of a civic legend.

Oct. 9, 1936 – May 16, 2020

After his retirement from Niagara Mohawk, Norman S. Davis and his wife moved from Elma to Florida, then to the western shore of Lake Champlain, and finally to Clarence before failing health required him to move into Brothers of Mercy nursing home in Clarence 15 months ago.

Doris M. Mathias was born on Buffalo’s East Side on March 17, 1918, when the Spanish Flu was beginning its deadly march to claiming 50 million lives worldwide.

She survived that pandemic, but the 102-year-old woman is now among the lives lost to Covid-19.

For a time in May, a mother and her two daughters were in Olean General Hospital, all attached to ventilators, all struggling with Covid-19.

All had led distinguished lives. All were members of the Seneca Nation's Heron Clan. And all had made such a mark that the Seneca community now feels an "unmistakable emptiness," Nation President Rickey Armstrong Sr. said in a statement.

Maggy Woodward’s sprawling family, the siblings and nieces and nephews who revered her, were pleased more than a year ago when Maggy wound up with Natalie Hanlon as a roommate at the Beechwood Continuing Care nursing home in Getzville.

“They were comfortable together,” said Natalie’s son Rick. He understood the two women were joined by a kind of grace they never relinquished, even after they learned they had tested positive for Covid-19.

Philip Beckman survived the Holocaust, forced at age 18 from the Krakow ghetto to the Nazi concentration camp featured in the movie "Schindler's List."

He told his daughters that he vividly remembered one of the movie's horrific scenes: After the concentration camp's brutal commandant, Amon Goeth, executed his stable boy, Beckman was ordered to dispose of the teen's body.

Dec. 15, 1930 – June 3, 2020

Loren A. Keller, a teacher, actor, playwright and award-winning author, died June 3 in Williamsville Suburban Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing of complications from Covid-19. He was 89.

Sept. 25, 1925 – June 6, 2020

Spurred by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Donald G. Symer Sr. of Lancaster enlisted in the Navy on his 17th birthday, and he went on to serve in combat in the South Pacific during World War II.

Tim O’Brien was in respiratory distress when he went to Buffalo General Hospital in an ambulance on Oct. 9. But Covid-19 didn’t just attack his lungs.

By the time the retired salesman and longtime president of the Maritime Charter School board of trustees died, the virus had damaged much of his body, including his kidneys, liver, heart, bone marrow and brain.

The lights at Klimek’s Tavern on Oliver Street in North Tonawanda aren’t burning as brightly, now that one of its best-loved patrons has been claimed by Covid-19.

William “Billy” Fanto was more than just the guy seated at the end of this hometown bar. He was the fellow whose smile and laugh drew you toward him in order to bask in the joy he unfailingly exuded, said his friends and family.

As an 82-year-old woman who battled emphysema and lung cancer, the Rev. Barbara Jane Herling was fearful of catching coronavirus.

But that is exactly what happened to her last month, and several days after being diagnosed with Covid-19, Herling, a spiritualist minister from Depew, was dead.

Everywhere he went, he brought a little magic with him.

That’s how family members remember Edward Barszcz, a longtime math teacher, magician, traveler and adventurer who died of Covid-19 earlier this year at the St. Joseph campus of Sisters of Charity Hospital. He was 74.

This is a confession. I still go by my breakthrough lesson in storytelling, the way wildly separate circles sometimes come together as if preordained, which I thought about last week when I received a Facebook message from Julie Murray Ahrens.

Her father, Tom Murray of West Seneca, was an old friend and a high school teacher of meaning in my life. Julie told me he had died from Covid-19, at 70. The note arrived while my wife Nora, our daughter, our younger son and I remained in isolation after we all tested positive for the virus, a moment when the concern and selfless gestures of friends, family and neighbors reaffirmed everyday gratitude I should never allow myself to forget.

Nov. 14, 1935 – Dec. 2, 2020

At 5 feet, 2 inches, Blase J. LaDuca was larger than life, said his daughter Michelle Mathews.

The New York State Health Department has a backlog of nearly 5,000 unresolved complaints filed against nursing homes during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Citing privacy laws, the Health Department refuses to shed any further light on those complaints other than to say they are pending and under review. 

His children and grandchildren were pulling for Harold L. Meacham to mark his 100th birthday in a year and a half, but he didn't make it.

His death notice in The Buffalo News said he was "defeated by Covid-19."

Joseph J. Thomas looked frightened.

He was dying from Covid-19, without his family around him. Each of his five children were saying their goodbyes remotely, on Thanksgiving day.

Philip G. Wiechec turned 70 on April 24, in the first weeks of the Covid-19 pandemic.

"We never got to have the big party," said his sister, Marie Manikowski.

Oct. 30, 1970 – Nov. 10, 2020

Michael J. Burns "approached every single day with a determination to fit as much as he could into whatever time God gave him," said his daughter, Caitlyn Grace Burns.

Oct. 9, 1942 – Dec. 6, 2020

June A. Valenzuela spent much of her professional career as a registered nurse in obstetrics, assisting with labor and birth.

July 11, 1932 – Dec. 18, 2020

Raymond G. Koegel, an executive at The Buffalo News and the operator of Pine Meadows Golf Course in Clarence for many years, died Dec. 18, 2020, of Covid-19 in Port St. Lucie, Fla. He was 88.

March 27, 1936 – Dec. 10, 2020

Frederic K. Houston studied architecture under two of the masters of modern design. More often that not, however, his projects involved accommodating the ornate styles of the past.

This is part of a series of stories on Western New Yorkers who have died from Covid-19. Read more at "Profiles of a Pandemic."

Richard L. Odien never forgot the 1954 fire that took the lives of 15 of his sixth grade classmates in Cleveland Hill Elementary School. In fact, he told their story to educate youngsters in the Depew school district, where he taught for 27 years.

Thomas Kutas was a quiet family man who died of complications resulting from Covid-19 on Dec. 23 at Sisters of Charity Hospital, St. Joseph's Campus in Cheektowaga.

It is a bit a mystery as to how the 72-year-old North Buffalo man, who worked at American Brass for 41 years, contracted the virus, according to the eldest of his two sons, Aaron.

Jody L. Kotowski, a postal service employee for 23 years, was a devoted wife and a champion for her special-needs daughter.

"She wanted to make sure that Francesca had as many fun, positive experiences in her life as possible," said Kotowski's brother, Richard Tomaszewski. "She was always so concerned about Francesca, and her whole life was spent worrying about her, at first.

In 1969, Dr. Luis A. Valenzuela was stationed in South Carolina with U.S. Army Medical Corps. He was supposed to be sent to Japan, but his wife was pregnant with their son Michael.

Valenzuela "got in his car and drove from South Carolina to The Pentagon to say that he couldn't go because of my mother's pregnancy," said his son David. His superiors agreed, on the condition that he accept a later assignment to Germany. But he was discharged with the rank of major in 1970 without going overseas.

Like many couples who had spent years together, James and Dottie Dojka developed a comfortable rhythm with each other that was alternately touching and comical to watch, according to her daughter and his stepdaughter, Michele Meredith.

"Me and my kids would sit back and laugh at them, because they were like a comedy show," Meredith recalled.

Dr. Joseph Masling, a pioneering researcher in Freudian psychology who taught at the University at Buffalo for more than half a century, also indulged an eclectic range of interests.

He played classical violin and listened only to classical music with a fierce antipathy toward anything composed after 1875. He was an oenophile, a connoisseur of fine wines. 

This is part of a series of stories on Western New Yorkers who have died from Covid-19. Read more at "Profiles of a Pandemic."

Annette Masling, former head librarian at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, was the first one in her downtown Buffalo home to contract Covid-19 in December.

This is part of a series of stories on Western New Yorkers who have died from Covid-19. Read more at 'Profiles of a Pandemic.'

April 23, 1944 - Jan. 18, 2021

Nov. 22, 1931 – Feb. 11, 2021

Lothar "Larry" Gottlieb fled the Nazis with his parents as a boy of 9. At the request of his wife, Doreen, he talked about his experiences with a couple of classes, but he never discussed that era of his life with his three children.

Elaine M. Luparello was a dynamic, active woman, who with her sister founded and operated two of the first day care centers in the area in the early 1970s.

Her ambition ran in the family.

Paul L. Bohanna adored his family and was a great example of a father and a husband, said his daughter Shyla Kelcy.

Three weeks was the longest he and his wife Gladys had been apart in 34 years of marriage.

Dennis R. DePerro, the 21st president of St. Bonaventure University, was a dynamo.

Soon after taking office, he formed several commissions to examine critical issues, then launched a comprehensive capital campaign to build "A Bolder Bonaventure." Last year he reconstituted the Presidential Commission on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

Oct. 4, 1943 – March 26, 2021

Jacqueline C. Groszkowski spent her life giving to others.

Feb. 1, 1944 – March 25, 2021

Patricia A. Thompson Scholz, an award-winning real estate broker, died March 25 in Sisters of Charity Hospital St. Joseph Campus, Cheektowaga, 18 days after she was admitted for treatment of Covid-19. She was 77.

Jan. 18, 1940 – March 27, 2021

Howard H. English worked as a systems analyst at the University at Buffalo from 1968 to 1980, designing and implementing systems that included physical inventory, integrated coding, statistical modeling and even a final exam scheduling system for thousands of students.

A "gentle giant" is how Mark Williams’ friends describe the man known as "Big Daddy" at Coles bar and grill on Elmwood Avenue.

The establishment was more than a haunt for Williams. He had spent time there as a bouncer, a patron and best friend of the owner, Mike Shatzel.

Although working full-time and always chipping away at home improvement projects, Michael T. Roth looked for a way to give back to the community after guiding his son to the rank of Eagle Scout.

An avid outdoorsman, Roth found a home with the all-volunteer Niagara Frontier Search and Rescue Team, joining in 2013 and becoming vice president a few years ago. 

For the past 20 years, Deborah A. Lytle, a registered nurse and health care administrator, cared for patients and taught medical professionals despite her own health challenges.

Since 2000, she had been treated for breast cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and a brain-stem tumor. After recovering, Lytle "continued to enjoy travel, golf, gardening, photography, good food and hearty conversations," said her friend, Kate Lulek. "She could not, however, overcome the ravages of Covid-19."