Chris Churchill
Remembering, missing a lovely neighbor.
During this pandemic, I’ve thought often of Eugenia Rutherford. Some of you will remember Mrs. Rutherford, as generations of her students called her, from her years as a physical education teacher in Troy and Watervliet.
But Jeanne, as we knew her, was long retired and in her 90s when we moved into the house across the street from hers.
In the early days of our life here, Jeanne was a kind neighbor who would wave to us from her front porch. We’d see her riding her exercise bicycle in the front window, and we would hear the stories about her.
She was jogging well into her 80s, neighbors told us. She used to cross-country ski down the middle of the street, they said. She keeps the library afloat with her reading, we heard.
But it wasn’t until our daughter was born that our relationship with Jeanne blossomed. My
wife would often bring the baby over to Jeanne’s house in the mornings, and they would talk about motherhood, life, nature’s beauty, everything.
My connection with Jeanne was often secondhand. When I came home at the end of the day, I would be told about the things she had said, the advice she had given, the wisdom she had imparted.
I don’t think it’s going too far to say that my wife was in awe of Jeanne — of her strength, her patience, her knowledge, her faith. My daughter grew to love her, too.
There was something so special and beautiful about that relationship. A tiny girl who was new to the world, who was seeing everything for the first time, sitting with a woman who had seen so much.
Jeanne was born in Schenectady in 1920.
That year, Babe Ruth was in his first season with the Yankees, Woodrow Wilson was president, the first commercial radio station began broadcasting and women were finally given the constitutional right to vote.
Movies didn’t have sound. Penicillin hadn’t been discovered. Stores didn’t sell sliced bread.
Jeanne lived through the Great Depression and the assassination of John F. Kennedy. She was born just after World War I but witnessed World War II, the Korean and Vietnam wars, the wars in Iraq. She watched the world change in countless ways.
And there she was, sitting day after day with a girl who was just beginning her journey. Profound doesn’t begin to describe it.
I know my daughter brought joy to Jeanne, who was 98 when she died in 2018. She would smile as she watched children run and play in our yard, and she would light up when they came to visit.
But the gifts she gave us, including the insight gained from a long life lived well, were so much bigger than anything we could give her. Those gifts will stay with us forever. We talk about them often. We miss her terribly.
Jeanne didn’t live to see the pandemic. And though I wish she had been with us longer, part of me is glad about that.
At her age, she would have been awfully vulnerable to COVID -19, and I hate to think of her isolated from her friends and frequent visitors, from my wife and daughter, from her large and loving family. It would have been so hard for her, a terrible way to spend her final years.
And Jeanne, I’m sure, would have been saddened by the realities of pandemic life — the empty churches, the virtual schooling, the weakened community connections — and frustrated at the country’s inability to effectively confront the crisis.
I think she would have been stunned, as many of us are, by a U.S. death toll that has topped 500,000 people.
That’s the population of Albany, five times over. It’s a staggering number of deaths, and we shouldn’t let ourselves become numb to the scope of the tragedy and the enormity of the loss.
But I’ve heard the toll discounted by some who note that many of the deaths were of the elderly or infirm. Some have even suggested that, therefore, taking strong measures against the the virus to combat its spread wasn't justified.
I don’t think anyone who knew Jeanne would think that way. Nobody who saw how strong her light shined, well into her 10th decade, could downplay the loss of so many older Americans.
Many of those stolen by the coronavirus still had so much to give. Some would have had deep and lasting impacts on those fortunate enough to know them.
How many families have been denied the gift mine was given? How do we begin to weigh that loss? No number, no matter how large and staggering, can do it justice or measure what has been taken.
Eugenia Rutherford didn't die because of the coronavirus. But she has helped me understand its terrible toll.
“Many of those stolen by the coronavirus still had so much to give. Some would have had deep and lasting impacts on those fortunate enough to know them.