Transcendients: Memorial to Healthcare Workers
Died 30 March 2020
DAVID WOLIN
RACE/ETHNICITY White
OCCUPATION Radiologist
LOCATION Brooklyn, NY
AGE 74
CONCERNS ABOUT ADEQUATE PPE? Unknown/Other
Brooklyn radiologist was ‘kind, simple, loving and devoted’
By 10am on Sundays, David Wolin and his wife, Susan, would have completed one-quarter of the New York Times crossword puzzle.
When the grandchildren arrived, Wolin greeted them with bagels, lox, whitefish “and the best scrambled eggs in the entire world”, said Helena Cawley, his daughter.
Wolin was “kind, simple, loving and devoted”. A radiologist specializing in mammography, he was “committed to learning everything he could”, Cawley said. “The latest medical journal was always on his nightstand.”
He and Susan would skip off to their home upstate, where they might take out a rowboat, a bottle of chardonnay and a brick of Roquefort cheese under the stars. “All they needed was each other,” Cawley said.
In late March, Wolin complained of “bad colds” but deferred testing. Brooklyn hospital was overwhelmed with Covid-19. A hospital spokesperson could not be reached for comment.
On 30 March, when Cawley couldn’t reach her father, she called the doorman of his building. He reluctantly shared the news: Wolin had died overnight.
Susan was hospitalized that day with Covid-19 symptoms and died weeks later. “We’re grateful in a way,” Cawley said, “because we don’t know how they could have lived without each other.”
– Eli Cahan