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ICU nurse Christy Mulder says the images of families saying goodbye to dying loved ones over FaceTime are forever seared in her memory. They mark some of the most heartbreaking moments of her career. “We would prepare the call, and families would talk to a husband or mom or grandparent for the last time,” she says. She works in an area of University of Utah Hospital devoted to the sickest of the sick. She says patients weren’t always coherent, but those final conversations meant everything to the families they left behind. “At the end of the call, folks would watch a loved one take those final breaths on a computer screen…It was unimaginable.”
From final goodbyes to funerary rites, Coronavirus hijacked death’s dignity. Hospital rooms that should have been the scene of loving spouses, children and grandchildren surrounding the bed of a dying patient instead lay quietly still, with only the sounds of modern medical machinery and the footsteps of overworked doctors and nurses in the halls.
“There was a reverence in knowing that I was the person that somebody was going to die with,” Mulder says. “Yet the workload was so great that I felt constantly conflicted—there was so much death, I don’t think—even now—I’ve properly processed everything.”
Acting as a reassuring voice became a duty as important as providing the best possible medical care. But how do you comfort someone isolated from family and friends while wearing a science-fictiony spacesuit? How do you make meaningful connections that mitigate fear and communicate compassion to someone in an almost-apocalyptic hospital setting?
“There’s a lot that can’t be communicated in all the gear we’ve had to wear over the past year, so I’ve had to change the way I care for patients,” Mulder says. “It’s always a busy place, and usually, with family at the bedside, we’re free to move in and out of rooms pretty quickly.” But when visitors were barred from entering hospitals, Mulder says she made the decision to do her charting and other tasks in the patient’s room instead of at the nursing station, so she could spend as much time with them as possible. “They just needed to hear another person’s voice.”
With so many unknowns about the spread of COVID-19 in the early months, that was no small decision. Many health care workers were rightly concerned about their own safety.
“Some people were talking about our rights as caregivers. Should we put our lives on the line? Our families’ lives?” Mulder says. She adds that the rapid deterioration of people with the disease coupled with the early images of New York’s tragic fight against the virus were frightening for healthcare workers. She faced an invisible enemy whose tactics were often evasive and unpredictable. “So it was scary to make the decision to work.”
When, in December 2020, after what felt like an eternity of dark days, Mulder was asked if she would like to be the first person in Utah to receive the COVID-19, she was honored. “The vaccine gave me and my colleagues new reasons to go forward,” she says. “I felt as if they’d asked me to be an ambassador for hope.”
This story is part of our series on coronavirus heroes. Read all of them here.
Twelve-year-old Brooke Jones of Sandy says she sometimes wishes she had a phone. Then again, she does notice a lot of kids her age getting lost in their screens. “They can’t look around because they’re always looking down,” she says, conceding her parents’ rule might not be completely unreasonable.
Looking around and noticing others is what Brooke is best at, says her mother Bethany Jones. “She’s the kid who has her eyes open in the lunchroom for that person sitting alone.”
Mom works for the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a humanitarian organization that aids citizens devastated by war or disaster, which, she says, has given herself, her husband and their four kids an awareness of their own privilege. “Global issues are a regular subject around the dinner table,” she says. So when the pandemic hit and many other kids hunkered down with their devices to keep them company, Brooke kept her eyes up.
“I’m small. I’m 12. What can I do?” Brooke remembers asking herself when COVID-19 ramped up and schools closed. She’d recently taken up sewing, joining an after-school class with her friends that ignited a new passion—driving her to create potholders, denim quilts, baby blankets and even bowties for her two pet goats. (“They hate them,” she says with a laugh, “but they look so cute.”) Sewing also connected her with her elderly neighbor, Mardi Lessee, a highly-skilled seamstress who was happy to take Brooke under her wing.
“Mardi showed me how to make my first mask,” she says of a time before interactions with neighbors became limited to front porch visits. Brooke made masks first for her family, choosing Cubs-themed fabric for her dad and three brothers in honor of their favorite baseball team, cat-themed fabric for her grandma, and a flowered pattern for her mom and herself. It was then that Brooke realized she had the answer to her own question. “I realized I could sew masks for people who don’t have them; that’s what I could do.”
Her mom helped Brooke post a notice on the NextDoor website, announcing her “Buy a mask, donate a mask” program in March 2020. She used the $5-per-mask income to fund supplies like fabric, thread and elastic, making hundreds of masks to add to IRC’s refugee kits. Sometimes, her friend Zoe also helped sew masks, and Lessee pitched in supplies as well.
“By the end of April, I had what I needed and didn’t need to fundraise anymore,” she says, “so I only made masks to donate.” That turned out to be a good thing, as groups ranging from neighborhood sewing circles to LDS Relief Society cohorts began mobilizing large-scale mask-making efforts and supplies quickly dwindled.
Brooke says when the pandemic hit, she remembers feeling frightened and uncertain, but, she says, “my teacher told us, we can’t live in fear.” She took the advice to heart. The act of tracing, cutting and sewing has become Brooke’s happy place. “I do get stressed and I struggle with anxiety a little,” she says. “Now when I feel that, I sew. I know sewing will always be there for me even in this chaotic world.”
When Brooke’s mom tuned into the presidential inauguration a few months ago, she says she thought of her daughter during Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman’s climactic final lines of The Hill We Climb:
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it.
“I think this younger generation will have to be braver than we’ve had to be,” she says. “I see that Brooke is a light and she’s not afraid to be it.”
This story is part of our series on coronavirus heroes. Read all of them here.
A rumor is making its way around the fourth grade that Cottonwood Elementary School teacher, Kayla Williams, once worked as a Disneyland princess. Although untrue, it’s not completely unfounded. The self-proclaimed Disney fanatic’s effervescence and sparkling smile could easily inspire such talk, not to mention she takes vocational advice from the “practically perfect” Mary Poppins.
“In every job that must be done there is an element of fun,” she says, repeating the lyric from Disney’s favorite nanny. “I like the challenge of helping kids find the fun. I try to think like they do when approaching a new concept. I love it when I see that spark and I know I’ve reached them.”
Seeing that spark is much more challenging when teaching students online, however. Williams is one of 40,000 Utah teachers who taught students in-person as well as online during an uncertain 2020–2021 school year.
“It’s been tough trying to adapt things for online learning and make sure remote kids have felt included,” she says, conceding that it’s also a great deal more work. “I really felt for the teachers who spent most of the year teaching online exclusively. It’s not easy to motivate students or recognize their level of understanding over a computer.”
Williams says so much of teaching involves reading and responding to unspoken cues. Often a student’s body language lets her know something isn’t clicking so that she can try a different approach.
Principal of Cottonwood Elementary School, Kayla Mackay, says teachers were asked with little notice to incorporate online students into their existing daily teaching routine.
Tracking online students in addition to traditional classroom students has been incredibly challenging for her teachers, Mackay says, “but they have done a remarkable job.”
Parents in Williams’s classroom, like Jayne Pahnke, think so, too. “Ms. Williams always seems to be going the extra mile, especially this year, giving her free time and resources for kids during an erratic and scary time for them.” Fourth-grade student Hannah Tate agrees. “I count the seconds until school starts,” she says.
This story is part of our series on coronavirus heroes. Read all of them here.
Dr. Mark Shah, who teaches a disaster management class to medical students, says he would never have had the audacity to create a scenario in which an earthquake hits during the onset of a global pandemic. “That would have crossed into the unreasonable,” the doctor says. “I couldn’t have dreamed that one up.”
Shah has deployed with several boots-on-the-ground medical response teams from Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans to the earthquake in Haiti, but he marks the dual incidents in his hometown as “the moment I entered the longest disaster deployment of my life and the only one where I’ve slept in my own bed.”
During the height of the pandemic, the Utah Department of Health reported those living west of I-15 in Salt Lake City were twice as likely to become infected as those living east of the interstate. The disease exposed an ugly truth: poorer folks along the Wasatch Front would pay the greatest price to COVID-19.
Shah knows he can’t fix every social issue, but in his appointed role to create and advise in Crisis Standards of Care, he made it his mission to ensure no one was sidelined as our hospitals shifted into crisis mode and demand for care outstripped supply.
Before the pandemic, Shah restructured state contingency plans for triaging care in case of a disaster. He collected input from advocacy groups like the Disability Law Center, throwing out the traditional outcome-driven playbook.
“Those who have been historically disenfranchised weren’t going to be further disenfranchised because, say, they hadn’t had the same access to health care in the past,” says Shah, “not when they have borne the burden of this virus and not for any other reason.”
Thanks to groundwork laid by Shah and others, no one in Utah who needed a ventilator went without. As hospitals reached capacity, Shah helped organize the effort to offload patients by diverting them to less busy ones, oversaw the creation of alternate care sites, employed technology to monitor at-home patients, reinstated retired nurses and recruited more staff from around the country.
“The running of these plans was the work of thousands,” he says, loathe to take credit. “Responding to a disaster really clears away all of that cynicism and doubt that we have toward our fellow humans. When communities are challenged, they really step up and come together.”
This story is part of our series on coronavirus heroes. Read all of them here.
In our May/June issue, we wanted to remind ourselves of the importance of appreciating the people and events that give definition and shape to our world. Writer Heather Hayestalked to folks who were in the thick of Utah’s coronavirus response in many ways: some big and some small. These everyday heroes madeUtah a better place to live during a challenging year.All photos by Adam Finkle
Design by Jeanine Miller and Scott Peterson
Dr. Angela Dunn
Utah’s State Epidemiologist
“I’ve always had the luxury of a singular goal: to keep people safe.”
Dr. Angela Dunn
Dr. Angela Dunn says she certainly never expected to be a household name in Utah, but her straight-talking, no-nonsense briefings have bannered our news feeds for over a year. Read more here.
“The best part of my job is talking to people and helping them feel taken care of. I honestly love it.”
Louis Donovan
With non-essential businesses forced to close during the early days of the pandemic, grocery stores became a lifeline for customers, ensuring families remained fed and supplied while hunkering down and giving folks a moment to interact with other humans. Read more here.
Christy Mulder
Nurse, University of Utah Hospital Medical Intensive Care Unit
“The vaccine gave me and my colleagues new reasons to go forward … I felt as if they’d asked me to be an ambassador for hope.”
Christy Mulder
When, in December 2020, after what felt like an eternity of dark days, Christy Mulder was asked if she would like to be the first person in Utah to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, she was honored. Read more here.
Brooke Jones
Seventh-grader Donor of hundreds of homemade masks
“It’s amazing that pouring 10 minutes into making a mask could change someone’s life, or at least make a difference in their life.”
Brooke Jones
The act of tracing, cutting and sewing has become Brooke’s happy place. “Everyone has life and that’s something we should treasure,” she says. Read more here.
Kayla Williams
Fourth-grade teacher Cottonwood Elementary
“I like the challenge of helping kids find the fun … I love it when I see that spark and I know I’ve reached them.”
KAYLA WILLIAMS
Kayla Williams is one of 40,000 Utah teachers who taught students in-person as well as online during an uncertain 2020–2021 school year. Read more here.
E.R. Dr. Mark Shah
Director, Disaster Preparedness for Intermountain Healthcare Consultant, Utah Hospital Association
“Responding to a disaster really clears away all of that cynicism and doubt that we have toward our fellow humans.”
Dr. Mark Shah
Dr. Shah knows he can’t fix every social issue, but in his appointed role to create and advise in Crisis Standards of Care, he made it his mission to ensure no one was sidelined as our hospitals shifted into crisis mode and demand for care outstripped supply. Read more here.
Since the publication of this article in our print issue, Dr. Dunn has announced she will step down as the State Epidemiologist to become executive health director of Salt Lake County.
When Tony Caputoopened his market and deli in 1997, it changed everything. Tony passed away on March 10, 2021. Tony’s efforts helped all boats rise. He educated Utah palate, primed tastebuds beyond the “ethnic” aisle at Smith’s and filled our city with fine artisan pastas, San Marzano tomatoes and gigantic wheels of Parmigiano-Reggiano. The man behind the “wheels” has left our collective plates better, richer and more robust for his efforts. Ciao, you old coot.
A friend ofmine is a long-time employee at Caputo’s Market. We were talking fondly about Tony and she told me something about him that surprised me, although, knowing Tony, it shouldn’t have. Seems that Tony, despite rumors of retiring, never stopped coming to the store. Tony was often at the shop before its earliest morning crews, tending to the flowers and sweeping the parking lot. Shortly after Tony passed away in March, she told me that the neon apostrophe in the Caputo’s Market sign had gone on the fritz. “Nobody even knew where the switch was to turn it off,” she says. “Much less who to call to get it fixed. Tony knew all that.” For me, it was a reminder of how a person like Tony’s absence reveals the depth of their presence in our lives.
Executive Editor Jeremy Pugh; Courtesy Proraso USA
So too goes the life of a city. Last summer, the staples of summer life were suddenly gone and the cadence of the season was thrown off. It may sound frivolous, but the things that were to be counted upon—the mad rush to make it to a Red Butte show, the triumphant cacophony of The Utah Pride parade and festival, Sunday afternoons in the ballpark—revealed the depth of their presence in our lives. So for this issue, we wanted to remind ourselves of the importance of appreciating the people and events that give definition and shape to our world. We talked to folks who were in the thick of Utah’s Covid response in many ways, some big and some small. And, we offer you a shot in the arm—a snap-out-of-it list of ways to reclaim summer. Yep. We want a do-over. Let’s make this one count.
This editor’s note is part of our May/June 2021 issue. Look for it on newsstands May 1 or read it online here. To subscribe to our print magazine, click here.
When 23-year-old Breana Landon woke up at the end of March with body aches and vomiting, she thought she had the flu. “I was very surprised when I went to the doctor,” she said. “The doctor came in, came right up and hugged me, and I just knew,” said Landon. She had tested positive for COVID-19.
Landon, a front-line healthcare worker, was fully vaccinated for COVID-19 at the time—it had been more than two weeks since her second shot of the vaccine. As an insurance coordinator at Copperview Medical Center, Landon was tapped early in the pandemic to assist in COVID-19 testing. She had already tested positive for the virus once before, back in October. “I was scared,” she said. “The first time hit me pretty hard. I got super sick, and it ended up developing into pneumonia.”
It’s rare for someone to test positive for COVID-19 after they were fully vaccinated. As of Wednesday, Utah has recorded 163 breakthrough cases out of 699,517 people who are fully vaccinated, according to the state health department. That makes the rate of breakthrough cases just 0.02%.
Dr. Emily Spivak, an infectious disease physician with University of Utah Health, takes some issue with the term “breakthrough” case. “Breakthrough implies we don’t expect it to happen,” she said. “But we do—just at a very, very low frequency.”
While people might be quick to infer the opposite, the rare possibility of breakthrough cases is all the more reason to get the vaccine. “These vaccines prevent severe disease and hospitalizations,” said Spivak. “To turn this pandemic from everyone scared for their life to… just the small possibility that you may get it, but, if you do, there’s almost zero chance you’ll get hospitalized. That’s really amazing.”
“We should look at the strengths of the vaccines. The vaccine still makes a deadly disease less serious.”
Dr. Emily Spivak, University of Utah Health
The mRNA vaccines have efficacy rates of about 95%. “You would expect, if you have a population who has been fully vaccinated, 5% could still get COVID” said Spivak, but the real-world data has put the effective rate of breakthrough cases much lower.
Data recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed the impact of early vaccination on healthcare workers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UTSW). According to the report, the launch of the vaccination effort on Dec. 15 came as the number of infections was rapidly escalating in Texas.
Between Dec. 15, 2020, and Jan. 28, 2021, 350 of the 23,234 (1.5%) employees who were eligible to receive the vaccine tested positive for COVID-19. The majority (234) of those people had not yet been vaccinated. 112 were partially vaccinated. Only four people who had been fully vaccinated tested positive for the virus, representing 0.05% of the fully vaccinated employees.
“Real-world experience with SARS-CoV-2 vaccination at UTSW has shown a marked reduction in the incidence of infections among employees,” said the authors of the report. “This decrease has preserved the workforce when it was most needed.”
Another report, also published in the New England Journal this past March, showed similar results at two university health systems in California. The University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) both started testing asymptomatic employees after they launched their respective vaccination programs in December. The area was also experiencing a surge in COVID cases at the time.
From Dec. 16, 2020, through Feb. 9, 2021, only eight health care workers tested positive eight to 14 days after the second vaccination, and seven tested positive 15 or more days after the second shot. Once again, this put the COVID-19 positivity rate among the fully vaccinated at 0.05%.
A few things could put someone more at risk of contracting COVID-19 even after they are fully vaccinated. “It’s often people who are immunocompromised,” said Dr. Spivak. “Older people also have less robust neutralizing antibody reactions to these vaccines, but we knew they can be less effective as we age.”
Even so, Dr. Spivak emphasized breakthrough cases are still rare. This remains true despite the introduction of new variant strains of the virus. “Everything we have talked about with the efficacy of the vaccine has held true for what we’ve seen in Utah,” said Spivak. “Vaccinated people are still getting infected, but the rate is less than 1%.” If we do see an uptick in breakthrough cases, “It’s going to be a multitude of factors, not just the variants spreading more,” said Spivak. She said the removal of the mask mandate and an increase in COVID-19 cases overall could be potential factors.
“We should look at the strengths of the vaccines, not this very small weakness,” said Spivak of breakthrough cases. “And this weakness is not even a weakness. The vaccine still makes a deadly disease less serious.”
“I’m hopeful that people will get the vaccine and still continue to wear their masks. Without mass vaccination, this isn’t going to go away any time soon.”
Breana landon, front-line health care worker
When she tested positive for the virus after the vaccine, Landon said it was far less serious than the first time she had COVID, but she had to recover from the emotional side effects as well. “It was almost like a punch in the face,” she said. “All of the front-line workers are doing everything we can to get vaccines and run these tests for all these sick patients. It’s so discouraging—knowing I’m doing what I’m supposed to do and I still got it again.”
All that said, Landon does not see her experience—or any breakthrough case—as an excuse to stop doing “what we’re supposed to do.”
“I’m hopeful that people will get the vaccine and still continue to wear their masks because you can still catch the virus,” said Landon. “Without mass vaccination, this isn’t going to go away any time soon.”
Medical experts like Dr. Spivak have been saying that all along. “If everybody took them [vaccines], it would really halt community transmission to the point of going back to normal life,” said Dr. Spivak. “If not enough people take them, we’ll always have a vulnerable population and masks forever.”
It’s a message Landon has internalized through her experience. “I am still highly pro-vaccine,” said Landon “But I do think it has changed my outlook on it. It’s not ‘oh, you just get it and you’re good to go.’ It takes a lot of people getting the vaccine for it to work.”
Now, Landon is feeling much better. The Utah Health Department cleared her to return to work on Tuesday.
Since the beginning of the Coronavirus pandemic, racism against Asian American Pacific Islanders has spiked, as many people fell prey to false and hateful rhetoric and blamed those of Asian descent for the outbreak and spread of the virus. The Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism reported that in 2020 anti-Asian hate crimes increased 149%, even as overall hate crimes dropped 7% due to COVID-19 lockdowns. Videos of unprovoked, vicious attacks on Asian American Pacific Islanders have gone viral—in many cases, the attackers are never charged of a hate crime. In March, a man went on a shooting spree at three different massage spas in the Atlanta area, killing eight people—six of whom were Asian women—in what many are deeming a racist act of domestic terrorism.
One of multiple organizations in Utah working to support local Asian American Pacific Islander communities, especially during the current period of heightened attacks, is OCA Asian Pacific Islander American Advocates Utah, the local chapter of the national civil rights and advocacy organization. They provide social, political and economic support to more than 150,000 AAPI Utahns, with recent efforts focused on increasing voter registration and turnout, census outreach and COVID-19 testing.
According to OCA Utah, racist sentiments have risen as national rhetoric blaming Asian-Americans is used to shift blame from the U.S.’s own failures in preparing for the pandemic. OCA says these attitudes add to both deliberate and unintentional misunderstandings surrounding the AAPI community.
Utah is no exception to this trend. Emilio Manuel Camu, member of OCA Utah’s Board of Directors, noted that community members have had racial slurs yelled at them, been spit on, had rocks thrown at their cars and AAPI businesses and residences have received threatening letters telling them “to get out and go back home.”
This uptick of racial bias has particularly affected Asian American Pacific Islander women, who, according to Camu, are far more likely than men to be the target of racist attacks. In the past year, the national coalition Stop AAPI Hate recorded that out of 3,338 incidents reported to their center, 68% of respondents identified as female.
“Our organization surmises that this is heavily influenced by how U.S. media, TV and movies have largely portrayed Asian women as docile, submissive and sexual beings,” says Camu in an email to Salt Lake Magazine. “But, the fact of the matter is that Asian women are people with their own complex lives and stories.”
Discrimination against Asian-Americans has inspired protests, media coverage and national attention in the last several months. However, is this recent wave of anti-Asian hate truly a spike, or is the public simply taking more notice of it now?
Racism against Asians and Asian-Americans is, unfortunately, nothing new in the United States. The first wave of Asian immigration to the U.S. began in the 1850s, primarily on the West Coast during the height of the Gold Rush. Then in 1882, the federal government passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which effectively banned immigration from China, and was only repealed in 1943 after China became a U.S. ally in World War II. In 1941, Japanese-Americans were placed in internment camps after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, including one in Delta, Utah.
Today, the model-minority myth—an idea, built on stereotypes, that Asian American Pacific Islanders are more academically, economically and culturally successful than other minority groups—has been so deeply ingrained in our system that many people don’t realize what they are saying would be considered offensive. The belief that “all Asians are good at math and grow up to be doctors” can be extremely damaging to AAPI youth, who are pressured to fit inside this box. They suffer verbal slights and microaggressions from strangers, classmates, teachers and even friends who don’t understand the racial implications of their words.
Many of my friends who are part of the AAPI and BIPOC communities have expressed that when they were younger, they felt they had to suppress their culture and heritage to be accepted by peers, often seeking to “Americanize” themselves.
“The need to assimilate, integrate and ‘fit-in’ is part of many Asian Americans’ narrative if they grew up in the U.S. It’s part of the perpetual foreigner stereotype that is assigned to people of Asian descent who live in the U.S., that we’re never seen as people who belong—even though in Utah our communities have been here for the past 150 years,” Camu says.
But, why should any ethnicity feel the need to “Americanize” themselves in a country built on immigration and opportunity for all? Is the American Dream contingent on immigrants becoming “Americanized?”
The answer is no.
Asian American Pacific Islander entrepreneurs and business owners are integral parts of society. By introducing their traditions and history into Utah’s culture and economy, they diversify all aspects of life for the better. Utah is home to thriving AAPI-owned businesses that help provide a wide variety of culturally specific foods, clothing, products and services.
Especially right now, during a time of heightened animosity toward the Asian American Pacific Islander community, it is vital for us all to listen to their experiences, support them and stand up when we see someone acting out of racial bias. It is up to non-minority communities to educate ourselves about minority experiences and struggles because, while we may never be able to completely rid the country of racism, it doesn’t mean we can’t do everything in our collective power to empower minority communities.
“Listen to the AAPI community leaders and organizations, work with us, donate to our organizations, join our membership lists, volunteer for our events, learn about our history,” Camu says.
“One if they come from land-locked America, two if they’ve come from the sea! The out of towners are coming! It’s the Texans and the Californians! It’s not just for vacation this time! The proof’s in the license plate, you see,” says the Park City NIMBY.
For the sake of journalistic integrity, I’ll clarify I’ve paraphrased rather than directly quoted the sentiment I’m hearing around town. The bias, however, is very real. A particular strain of anti-new arrival anxiety is spreading, and like most things grounded in some form of originalism, it’s full of arguments made in bad faith. Park City, you see, is home to many born and bred Parkites, but it’s more and more populated by transplants who came in search of snow and mountains. The true OGs have a valid axe to grind—I moved here 14 years ago and am still considered a precocious new arrival by some—but most of us sound frighteningly hypocritical for calling out people doing exactly what we did.
Is it even happening, though? Has the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent work-from-home revolution enabled scores of people to move to Park City in the name of a better lifestyle? Surely, taking a look at school enrollment and real estate trends could shed some light on the situation.
October school enrollment data from Park City showed there were 61 fewer students enrolled district wide than in 2019. Of the 4,840 students, 137 were new enrollees, not counting kindergarteners enrolling for the first time.
“We’re right within that normal sort of standard,” said Superintendent Jill Gildea at a Board of Education Meeting in November. “We didn’t balloon to the size that everybody in the community has been kind of nervous about.”
What about exploding real estate prices? Home prices are indeed continuing to skyrocket in Park City, with the average condo price in Snyderville Basin increasing over the past year by 40%. Meanwhile, inventory has evaporated. I checked with several real estate agents, however, and received anecdotal shrugs instead of concrete trends. The starkest increase in demand is attributed to buyers of “luxury properties,” which likely would have a lesser effect on overcrowding than less expensive properties.
So, are the Californians and Texans really flocking here to take over? People are moving to Park City, but the trend was established long before the pandemic struck. While it’s likely some have seized the opportunity to move, the evidence doesn’t indicate a massive surge of new residents. Park City is an idyllic mountain community a short drive from an urban center with a growing economy. What did we expect? Anxiety about growth is a cottage industry in Park City. Be nice to the new Parkites. You were probably once one of them.
At Payson’s Peteetneet Museum and Cultural Arts Center, Salt Lake residents Liz Corbett Plumb and her 13-year-old daughter, Grace, take in the antique wooden desks and tidy blackboard of a classroom that once belonged to Liz’s great-grandmother, Irene Corbett. A whip-smart teacher who molded young minds during the dawn of the 20th century, Irene is memorialized in an exhibit at the museum for her inspirational life—underscored by her tragically famous and perhaps even more inspirational death.
Liz Corbett Plumb and her daughter Grace in the Peteetneet Museum in Payson
Pulling a treasured artifact from her purse, Liz holds the postcard up against an enlarged copy displayed prominently on one wall. Dated April 1, 1912, the card bears an illustration of London’s Piccadilly Circus on one side and Irene’s gracefully sloping scrawl on the back with her ill-fated words, “Finish London soon—am going to sail on one of the biggest ships afloat: the Titanic, an American Liner.”
This was the last dispatch from 30-year-old Irene, the only Utahn aboard the RMS Titanic. She drowned with more than 1,500 passengers hours after the liner struck an iceberg in the early hours of April 15, 1912 sinking to the ocean floor in the frigid north Atlantic on its way from Southampton to New York.
“Although we’ll never know how she spent her final hours that night, the fact that she wasn’t among the survivors gives us a remarkable clue,” says Liz. “Her family always felt she gave her own life for others.”
It’s a bold declaration. More than half of the passengers went down with the ship. But a closer look at the survivors puts the Corbett family’s inklings into sharp focus.
Irene’s second-class cabin was on the upper decks of the ship. She was among the more affluent women and children on these decks who had a head start loading into the dismally inadequate supply of lifeboats. (The majority of passengers held third class, or steerage, tickets and were held back from entering the upper decks). That’s why 93% of women and children from upper-deck cabins made it out alive.
But Irene didn’t. The question “why?” haunts her family.
Without the Prophet’s Blessing
Ten years earlier, 21-year-old Irene had accepted a teaching post at the Payson school.
“Protective” measures for women were the norm in the early 20th century. A Supreme Court decision in 1908 reflected the sentiment of the time, finding that a woman, like a child, ‘‘has been looked upon in the courts as needing especial care (sic) … she is properly placed in a class by herself, and legislation designed for her protection may be sustained.’’
As part of her teaching contract with the school, Irene signed her name to what, to modern eyes, would be a draconian set of rules for female teachers, especially an outspoken suffragette like Irene. Her contract forbade her from keeping the company of men, leaving home in the evening, traveling without permission, wearing any less than two petticoats or even visiting the local ice cream parlor.
When she met and married Walter Corbett, Irene was immediately forced to forfeit her contract and give up her classroom. She had broken her contract by dating Walter. Undeterred, she turned her attention to raising her young family and a new course of study, nursing, at the Brigham Young Academy in Provo.
“She was ahead of her time,” says Liz. “She wanted a family but also cared deeply about a fulfilling career.”
Irene soon found her calling in obstetrics, assisting physicians with deliveries. The highs of aiding in a healthy birth were, however, diminished with the frequent lows in losing a patient to childbirth, and Irene soon discovered that medical standards in her community were lacking. Troubled, she learned of a six-month training opportunity thousands of miles away at London’s Lying-In Hospital—a program unmatched by anything offered close to home. Irene’s medical colleagues and parents urged her to go—but her husband and his family? Not so much.
“She was an incredibly selfless person,” says Liz of the lore surrounding her great-grandmother. “She saw it as her calling to save lives. But her husband’s family thought it was too far away and they discouraged her from going.”
A niece of the Mormon Prophet Joseph F. Smith, Walter’s mother went to the great effort of arranging a meeting between the Prophet and her daughter-in-law in the hopes that he would convince her against the journey. But Irene remained determined.
Amid a flurry of finger-wagging and gossip, she left Payson and crossed the Atlantic without the Prophet’s blessing, leaving their three children: Walter, 5; Roene, 3; and Mack, 18 months; in the care of her parents who had mortgaged their farm to pay her tuition.
Irene Corbett’s Teaching Contract at the Peteetneet Academy
Teacher is not to get married. This contract becomes null and void of the teacher marries.
Teacher is not to keep the company of men.
Teacher must be home between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. unless in attendance at a school function.
Teacher may not loiter downtown in the ice cream parlors.
Teacher may not leave town at any time without the permission of the Chairman of the Board of Trustees.
Teacher is not to smoke cigarettes or drink wine, beer or whiskey. This contract becomes null and void if the teacher is caught smoking, or drinking wine, beer, or whiskey.
Teacher may not ride in a carriage with any man except her father or brother.
Teacher is not to dress in bright colors.
Teacher may not dye her hair.
Teacher will not wear dresses more than two inches above the ankle.
Teacher is to wear at least two petticoats.
Teacher is to bring a bucket to school to clean and scrub the building every week.
Helping London’s Poorest
The 1914 city streets of her new home would have been filled with whizzing bicycles, lumbering horse-drawn carriages and double-decker busses plastered with hand-painted signs touting everything from castor oil to cabbages. Men in long coats, sporting pocket watches and bowler hats and women in long frocks and elaborate haberdashery would have dotted the landscape of her York Road residence in Lambeth near the hospital.
For one unfamiliar with city life, the current class-struggle would have sharpened every angle of London’s turbulence, and Irene was given a front-row seat by treating the city’s very poorest. Letters to home described undernourished and flea-infested children hanging on the ragged skirts of her patients. A coal shortage would have lent no firelight comfort to the damp hospital and smashed shop windows—compliments of London’s West End Suffragettes—would have dotted Irene’s walks through the city. To the Provo Daily Herald, she sent articles detailing her experiences, discussing the plight of women in England and speaking out in favor of their rights.
“I am so glad to have this privilege [to study in London],” she penned in the bespoke final postcard, sealed in an envelope alongside a photograph of her small graduating class. She’d recently booked passage on the Titanic, longing for a swift reunion with her family. Then, reflecting on her grandmother’s treacherous sea voyage from
England as a Mormon convert, she added: “I shall enjoy the trip home, which will be quite different to the one my dear grandma took years ago with little comfort.”
A Family and Community Divided
While Irene probably didn’t take kindly to the rules for teachers at her first job in Payson, the protective mindset toward women needing “especial care” might have saved her life when tragedy struck the Titanic.
First and second-class women and children were eased into lifeboats while most men chivalrously stood aside. Yet, as a nurse, fiercely loyal to her call, perhaps Irene never saw herself in need of protection, but as one who might offer it to others.
In the days after the ship’s sinking, Irene’s whereabouts were unknown. Provo’s The Herald Republican’s headline read: “Provo Woman Among Missing; Family Hopeful.”
Four days later, on Saturday, April 19, 1912, a Deseret News article reported: “Hope abandoned for Mrs. Corbett’s safety … [it is an] inevitable conclusion that she perished in the waves with the untold numbers whose certain death will never be recorded.”
A posthumous Utah celebrity, speculation over Irene’s death swirled like debris in a dust devil. Some saw Irene’s tragedy as a cautionary tale.
“It was a big deal in her hometown,” Plumb says. Her great- grandmother’s decisions divided both her family and her community, causing a half-century rift between the Corbetts and the Colvins.
“People were saying she shouldn’t have gone against the Prophet,” Liz says. “But those who knew her intimately felt she was a hero— that it was her devotion to her faith that nudged her to England because she so badly wanted to help people, and that she likely used her last breath doing just that.”
Irene’s husband Walter continued on as a loving father, Liz says, but his children remained in the care of his in-laws. He soon remarried, but tragically died a few years later while undergoing surgery. In the home of Irene’s parents where Liz’s grandfather was raised, Irene’s name was spoken with reverence.
“My grandpa Mack grew up inspired by stories about his mother and they’ve made their way to me,” says Liz, adding she’s felt a kinship with Irene through her life. “I’ve always been drawn to adventure, to traveling to unusual places. Even when I was young I wasn’t afraid to go out and see the world. I think there’s a little bit of Irene in me.”
Liz says she hopes her great-grandmother’s generosity, determination and strength course through her veins as well, and that this strong female figure will inspire her five children— especially her only daughter, Grace.
“People who knew her best said Irene was selfless to a fault,” she says. “Besides being an adventurous woman, Irene had a strong sense of duty to humanity—that’s why she went to London in the first place. Her family agreed that it would have been ‘so like Irene’ if her final act was giving her own life for another.”
Healing
Built in 1901, The Peteetneet Academy, located at 10 S. 600 East, served students in Payson until its closure in the 1980s. Named to honor a local chief of the Timpanogos Tribe, the school was scheduled for demolition until concerned citizens stepped in to preserve the building and create a museum highlighting the area’s history. The museum has been shut down during the pandemic, but usually welcomes visitors Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
In 2012, the 100th anniversary of the Titanic’s sinking, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints paid tribute to Irene during its worldwide Salt Lake conference.
“It was her great desire to make a difference in the world,” leader Quentin L. Cook said after telling her story. “She was careful, thoughtful, prayerful and valiant.”
It’s a sentiment already well-known to Liz and her family—but, she says, it was nice to hear the church acknowledge her great-grandmother.
The Corbett and Colvin families’ proud ancestral tapestry comprises hardscrabble pioneers, hardworking farmers and faith-filled figureheads. But the strong-minded, doggedly selfless Irene has perhaps become the preeminent thread from which her progenitors draw strength. Now a new generation is looking to her legacy as they pave their own trail.
“I would have loved to have known her,” says Grace, glancing once more at the photo of her great-great-grandmother. “I love hearing that she did what she loved and she didn’t let anyone stop her.”
