Transcendients: Memorial to Healthcare Workers
Died 04 April 2020
MARILYN HOWARD
RACE/ETHNICITY Black
OCCUPATION School Nurse
LOCATION Brooklyn, NY
AGE 53
CONCERNS ABOUT ADEQUATE PPE? Yes
‘She was a mother to many’
Marilyn Howard was known for her generosity and for never missing a party. Born in Guyana, she came to the US as a teenager. She helped raise her five brothers and put her own ambitions on hold for them. “She was a mother to many,” her brother Haslyn said.
In her mid-30s, she turned to her own career goals. She started university and steadily racked up four different nursing degrees. She had recently begun studying to become a nurse practitioner.
Howard, who lived in Queens, New York, was a school nurse in Brooklyn, where she regularly treated children with chronic illnesses associated with poverty. The week before schools closed, a fellow nurse had a fever and a cough.
Days later, Howard developed the same symptoms. After initially improving, she took a sudden turn on 4 April. As her brother drove her to the hospital, her heart stopped. She was declared dead at the hospital.
In tribute, hundreds turned out on Zoom to mark Nine-Night – a days-long wake traditional to the Caribbean – where loved ones shared photos, sang songs, and recounted Marilyn’s impact on their lives.
The pandemic has since ripped through Marilyn’s extended family, infecting at least a dozen relatives. (One cousin was hospitalized, but has since been released and is recovering.) The family has evolved into a sprawling triage team, monitoring one another’s temperatures, delivering food, charting emergency contacts and nearby hospitals.
Howard’s brothers said they wanted to start a foundation in her name to help aspiring nurses in the US and West Indies. “The best way to honor her spirit and her memory is to bring more nurses into this world,” saysid her brother Rawle. “We need more Marilyns around.”
– Noa Yachot