Grandmother first in S.A. to die from virus
SAN ANTONIO — Zenzi FarrellLewis donned a face mask and gloves before she entered her mother’s room at a nursing home on the Northeast Side of San Antonio.
Sitting next to the bed, she looked at her 83-year-old mother — everyone knew Leola Wallace by her middle name, Doris — and wondered whether this would be the last time she would hold her mother’s hands or stroke her white, close-cropped hair.
For the last 12 years, Doris had lived with a type of dementia but was stricken in recent days with pneumonia and a slight fever.
Knowing that the novel coronavirus was circulating in San Antonio, Farrell-Lewis took a disinfectant wipe and carefully cleaned her mother’s hands and dabbed her forehead. She took off her mask and gloves and placed her hands around her mother’s. She leaned over and kissed her forehead.
Her mother, who had lost her ability to speak some time ago, didn’t respond.
Farrell-Lewis’ mind flooded with memories: the time her mother, a well-known local clothes designer, had sewn a three-piece, buttercup gold suit for her daughter to wear on picture day at school.
After taking a photo with her mother, Farrell-Lewis said her goodbyes. She needed to check on her 85-year-old father, Allee Wallace, an Army veteran and photographer, who was having trouble breathing and had to be hospitalized.
The next day, March 20, Farrell-Lewis would learn that her father had contracted COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, and that her mother likely had it, too. Doris Wallace died a day later. The highly contagious virus had taken its toll in less than a week. Authorities confirmed she was the first person in Bexar County known to have died of complications from the virus.
Four others, all women, have died in the county in the last week. As of Saturday, 140 people had tested positive for COVID-19, and about a quarter of them needed hospital care.
Wallace had Lewy body dementia, which causes significant memory loss and damage to motor functions. Over the years, Farrell-Lewis said, her mother’s condition had slowly declined to the point she could no longer remember her grandchildren’s names or how to chew food.
“I’ve been preparing myself for 12 or 13 years,” Farrell-Lewis said. “She was already transitioning to leave this realm. The coronavirus helped her transition into another life.”
Friends and family remembered Wallace as a sassy, creative person, who had a close circle of girlfriends. Wallace loved Africaninspired fabrics and traveling with her husband, a retired Army master sergeant and renowned civil rights photographer.
“She was bright colors, in life and in flesh,” Farrell-Lewis said. “I’m blessed. I’m not sad. I’m going to miss her, but it’s such a relief that she’s no longer confused. She knows who she is. She’s celebrating with her family and friends right now, I’m sure of it.”
Country girl
Leola Doris Gails was a country girl, born and raised in Hempstead, in Waller County, one of eight children.
She attended Prairie View A&M University, where she met her future husband, Allee Wallace, in a dancing seminar.
But there was one hitch: Wallace was her teacher.
After some time, the pair began dating. One day, Allee Wallace gathered up the courage to ask Mr. Gails for his daughter’s hand in marriage.
Mr. Gails was a slight man, about 100 pounds. He was sitting on the porch, smoking a cigar. Wallace, who at 6 feet towered above him, got on one knee.
“Mr. Gails, I really want to marry your daughter,” Allee Wallace recalled saying.
“OK, boy,” Gails responded. “You better take care of my daughter.”
In the late 1950s, Allee Wallace joined the Army and was a lab technician at Fort Sam Houston before becoming a photographer.
The pair traveled all over, and eight years later, while stationed in Germany, their first child, Zenzi, was born. Their second child, Allee Jr., was born a couple years later.
Eventually, the pair returned to San Antonio, and Allee Wallace retired. He worked for years as a staff photographer at the University of Texas at San Antonio’s Institute of Texan Cultures and briefly for former San Antonio Mayor Phil Hardberger.
Doris Wallace returned to school at what was then Incarnate Word College, where she earned a degree in fashion design. She started her own business, Designs by Doris, and specialized in wedding gowns and prom dresses. She later focused on African-inspired clothing, featuring colorful, bold fabrics.
Farrell-Lewis said her mother’s talent for sewing and design allowed her to look at a person and make a dress that fit to the curve, without ever consulting a pattern.
She also spent days redecorating their house to match a piece of new furniture, leaving a trail of glue and other craft supplies in her wake.
Once Farrell-Lewis had children of her own, her mother sewed blankets and bumper pads for her grandchildren.
“She was such a creative person,” Farrell-Lewis said. “A colorful, creative person.”
Dementia takes over
Over the last 12 years, as his wife’s condition deteriorated, Allee Wallace insisted on taking care of her, refusing any offer by his two children to hire a home health aide.
Until the end, Wallace tried to maintain some degree of normalcy, taking his wife to the movies or to Luby’s, where they would share a large plate of food, usually covered in gravy.
Occasionally, when he had errands to run, he would take his wife to visit her two best friends. When he came to pick her up, all three would be cackling — just like old times.
Wallace isn’t sure how he and his wife contracted the novel coronavirus, but he suspects it was at some public place, perhaps a movie theater or at church.
On March 16, he noticed Doris looked ill and took her to Brooke Army Medical Center, where doctors said she had pneumonia — likely from holding food in her mouth, causing her to aspirate. She also had a slight fever.
Doctors said there wasn’t much they could do. They suggested giving her some fluids and for her family to arrange hospice care.
That same day, Allee Wallace started feeling ill, too. He looked like a train wreck, his daughter recalled. He was checked into BAMC and released the next day.
On March 18, Allee began to have difficulty breathing. FarrellLewis drove him to BAMC again. This time, she said, doctors decided to test him for the coronavirus.
Two days later, the test result was positive. By that time, FarrellLewis had already visited the nursing home and said goodbye to her mother.
She called the nursing home in a panic about the result, and her mother was tested for the coronavirus. The first test, according to Farrell-Lewis, came back positive, but a second was inconclusive, she was later told.
Her mother died the next day.
A divine message
Allee Wallace said his brief stay at BAMC was nerve-wracking.
“There’s all kinds of things going through your head,” he said. “The medical staff is conducting all types of tests. You begin to wonder, why are they doing this? Why are they doing that? Then, all your relatives begin hollering, and you hear what’s transpiring on the news.”
Allee Wallace said he remains hopeful about his recovery. He was transferred to a rehabilitative facility, and his latest test for COVID-19 was negative. He said he feels much better and wants to return home soon. Farrell-Lewis said she is not feeling any symptoms.
On March 21, when his daughter called to say Doris had died, he was quiet at first.
“Are you all right, Dad?” Farrell-Lewis asked.
“Yeah, I’m OK,” he responded. “I’m sorry you couldn’t be there,” she told him.
“It’s OK,” he said. “I was there for 63 years.”
In that moment, a song came to mind. It was a hymn he had written after they had a scare while driving on a long, country road years ago.
Suddenly, as the tune filled his head, he knew everything would be OK. He began to hum the song to himself.
God has his angels watching over us.
They’re watching over us early in the morning, and in the evening, too.
God has his angels watching over us.
In the morning, and the early evening, too.