REMEMBERING THE LIVES OF THOSE WHO DIED FROM CORONAVIRUS

They were mothers and fathers, daughters and sons. Many were proud grandparents. All were loved, relatives say, and will be forever missed. As the number of deaths attributable to the coronavirus ticks upward, The Sun is working to chronicle those who have lost their lives in the Baltimore area.

These are some of those victims.

the National Hall and Civic Auditorium, both in San Francisco.

He lost the last two of his 38 professional fights to BuddyJackson and Dave Castilloux in1947 in the Arena in Trenton, New Jersey. His record was 32 wins and six losses, with half his victories being knockouts.

His father, who was a 45-yearold distillery worker when killed by a runaway railroad boxcar, was inducted into Maryland Boxing Hall of Fame Ring 101 in 1974. When Mr. Garcia was entered the hall in 1991, they were the first father and son inducted.

After retiring from the ring, Mr. Garcia worked as a long-distance truck driver for Anchor Freight Lines until retiring in 1979.

He and his wife of 58 years, the former Frances Smith, a longtime M&T Bank teller who had lived in Woodlawn, enjoyed traveling across the country in their motor home and camping. She died in 2016.

Several years ago, Mr. Garcia moved to the Augsburg Lutheran Home and Village in Lochearn, where he lived independently.

The one fight Mr. Garcia couldn’t win was against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mr. Redemann and his sister, Ruth Redemann of Dundalk, went to visit their uncle May 6. It was the last time they had any physical contact with him.

“He did suffer from a slight onset of dementia, but he knew who me and my sister were,” Mr. Redemann said. “He was talking about things we did as kids but couldn’t remember that we had taken him out for steamed crabs the previous weekend. He’d say, ‘When are we going out for crabs?’ He just couldn’t remember the present.”

Then one night, the phone rang at midnight.

“A nurse called on Mother’s Day evening and said he had a fever and they were calling 911 because it possibly could be COVID-19 and they were very concerned about him,” Mr. Redemann said. “He was taken to Northwest Hospital and tested positive for it on Tuesday, May12.

“While he was in the hospital, I talked to him on the phone, but he was confused. I told him that I loved him. They called and said he was pulling at the oxygen mask and they needed to restrain him. I hated the thought that they had to do that, but he needed oxygen because the COVID was in his lungs.”

As the days passed, Mr. Garcia grew increasingly incoherent.

“The last seven days he was shutting down. He stopped eating,” his nephew said. “I don’t know whether he would have survived or not, but before all of this happened, he was still getting out of bed each day and getting dressed.”

Mr. Garcia died two weeks after entering the Randallstown hospital.

“There are just two of us left now, just me and my sister,” Mr. Redemann said.

They are Mr. Garcia’s only survivors. A funeral is private.