Mother of seven liked to watch Astros games on TV with youngest son
PEGGY SMITH
In better times, Peggy Smith and her son, Sam Quinn, would start their mornings with coffee and conversation.
“You know how you start feeling really good in the morning and you want to start talking to somebody? You drink your coffee, wake up in and you’re in a good mood? That’s when I liked to call Mom,” Quinn said. “Me and Mom had a coffee tradition, we would either drink our coffee and call each other on the phone or we would drink our coffee swinging on the back porch. That’s what I miss the most, man.”
Peggy Smith, 87, was the first person in Galveston County to die from a coronavirus-related illness. She died on April 4. Smith was a resident at The Resort at Texas City, a nursing home that reported one of the largest single outbreaks of the virus in the state.
Quinn shared a close bond with his mother. The baby of the family, he was the only one of her seven children born to a different father. His parents met when Smith was a waitress at a restaurant that his father owned in Seabrook. As Quinn tells it, the pregnancy was unplanned and Smith, 42 at the time, went to a clinic to get an abortion. When the clinic closed before she could check in, she believed it was a sign.
“So she went ahead and had me,” Quinn said.
A Palestine native who lived in various Texas cities, Smith raised Quinn as a single mother, solidifying a bond centered around their mutual love for sports and good food. She was a die-hard Astros fan, with a particular fondness for José Altuve. As recently as a year ago, Smith would drive to Quinn’s house in San Leon to watch Astros games.
“She’d call me on the phone, ‘Are the Astros on?’
I said, ‘Yup, I got em on right here.’ She said, ‘I’m on my way.’ We would sit and watch the Astros game and she’d even have a glass of wine with me,” Quinn said.
When Smith’s mental condition began to deteriorate due to Alzheimer’s, Quinn was forced to place her in the nursing home, a short drive from his home, but he would still dote on her regularly, bringing her CBD supplements and “fancy vitamins” to stave off the worst of the disease.
When Quinn found out about the outbreak at The Resort on the evening of April 2, he rushed to the nursing home the next day. Despite a state ban on visitors at nursing homes, Quinn was allowed to enter because his mother was near the end of life.
He was given a mask and gown upon entering. Nurses told him that his mother had not tested positive for the virus, but Quinn was confused by her sudden turn for the worse. While Smith had dementia and Alzheimer’s and had recently stopped eating, she suddenly had trouble moving, talking and breathing. She could only wink at him to let him know she could hear his voice.
When Quinn left the nursing home later that day, his mother’s doctor told him that she had, in fact, tested positive.
His mother’s rapid decline and the lack of transparency from The Resort still stings Quinn a month later.
“I don’t know how special my mom was at that nursing home, I don’t know how they treated her. All I know is my mom was super special to me,” Quinn said. “I was in high hopes she was gonna get better. I was hoping that I could come pick her up and take her to my house for a couple days, have some wine together, drink some coffee on the back porch. I was just wanting those days back. And it’s gone.”