95-year-old sews some 1,700 masks

Recovery from COVID forced temporary break

MARYSVILLE, Ohio — When the coronavirus pandemic began, Miriam Looker sprang into action at the behest of her stepson, a central Ohio doctor.

Looker, 95, used her supply of quilting materials and soon was making up to 10 masks a day at her assisted living facility in Marysville, about 30 miles northwest of Columbus. Then, as she pushed well over 1,000 masks, Looker took a break — to recover from COVID-19 herself.

After feeling exhausted and taking a lot of naps in November, Looker was feeling like herself again and started back in. She cuts out patterns at night and adds pleats while watching the news, then inserts elastic straps the next day.

The masks have gone to her stepson’s patients, churches, hospice groups, schools and residents at Walnut Crossing Assisted Living Community, where Looker lives.

“It’s something to do when you’re tired of reading and tired of whatever is going on or don’t want to do it,” Looker said. “I can always sew, and it was fun.”

Looker now estimates she’s made about 1,700 masks, slightly ahead of a fellow resident who’s pushing 1,300 of her own.

It’s not the first time Looker has worked with material in an effort to save lives. In 1943, she had just finished her first year of college in her hometown of Glenville, West Virginia, when military recruiters came looking for women for the war effort.

After a summer training stint at West Virginia Wesleyan College in Buckhannon, she found herself in Dayton at what was then called Wright Field, today’s Wright-patterson Air Force Base, testing parachutes for the army. Testers would watch the troopers jump, record their hang time, then inspect parachutes for damage.

That experience explains a lot about her efforts to help during the pandemic, said her stepson,

Dr. Joseph Linscott.

“She’s just like Rosie the Riveter from World War II,” he said. “She went from making quilts to making masks. She changed her assembly line overnight.”

Looker knows there are coronavirus skeptics and people who don’t want to wear masks or think it won’t help.

“If wearing a mask helps other people, you need to be doing it,” Looker said.

Andrew Welsh-huggins The Associated Press Ohio resident Miriam Looker, 95, displays one of the 1,700 masks she’s made since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic using her quilting skills. The only break Looker has taken came in November, when she contracted COVID-19 herself.