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The nursing home, according to New Jersey records, has reported 37 positive COVID-19 cases and 14 deaths. Handy wonders, since Erwin’s test results came in after she passed, if her mother

was counted. Erwin was cheerful and easygoing and loved children. The Framingham, Massachusetts, house that Handy grew up in was always open and full of kids. Erwin lit up around her 11

grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren. Her first grandson, Scott Thomas, 48, a retired Army colonel, credits her for the man he has become. His father, Erwin’s son, was young when Thomas

was born, and his own mother was abusive, he says. “Big Hun,” as he called Erwin, became his “everything” — the selfless and supportive mother figure he needed, who “epitomized for me what a

parent should be.” Thomas, who now lives in Purcellville, Virginia, grew up spending weekends, summers and holidays with Erwin. During college, he lived with her and her youngest, Handy,

who is like a sister to him. Because of Big Hun, he says, he was the first in the family to earn a master’s degree. On April 23, Handy got another phone call, this time from an assisted

living facility in Fairfield, New Jersey. Erwin’s younger sister, 83-year-old Shirley Mercer, who never had children of her own and was like a second mother to Handy, had tested positive for

the coronavirus.