A Day in the Life

An alumni photo essay project showcasing unity.

By May 1, 2020, daily life had taken on a new, unfamiliar cadence for many Grove City College alumni around the globe. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic brought the regular rhythms of life to a screeching halt and simultaneously created a new sense of urgency, a longing for both community and normalcy. The GCC Alumni: A Day in the Life photo essay project was designed to showcase the unity and bond the alumni family shares, and to celebrate the unique ways they are living, working, playing, and serving in these not-so-ordinary days. More than 250 alumni submitted photos on May 1, 2020, all of them personal and meaningful. Their poignant images remind us all that we are not alone, even while “socially-distant.” These are some of their stories.

Roger Nelson ’53 shared a heart-wrenching image of one of his daily visits outside the window of his wife Martha’s nursing home room. Taken by the activity coordinator at her facility, the image captures Martha’s joy at seeing Roger as he readies his phone for their chat through the glass. According to Roger, the hardest thing about the pandemic has been the lack of personal contact between them. “I think it has resulted in a faster decline in her physical condition. The staff of the nursing home has stated that this is not only affecting Martha but also most of their patients.”

“One of the most difficult things I’ve experienced is watching the decline of someone so bright and vibrant happening right in front of my eyes. Martha was at the top of her high school, college and medical school classes, and was responsible for an organization of over 100 people and several millions of dollars in expenditures. She is now confined to a wheelchair, unable to walk or feed herself. Fortunately, she knows my name and can respond to simple questions and photographs.” (As this issue of The GēDUNK was going to press, we received word that Dr. Martha Nelson has passed away.)

If living during a global pandemic wasn’t hard enough, Laura (Doherty ’14) Collins and her husband suddenly found themselves becoming foster parents at the same time. Her photo submission, with the blurred out faces of her two tiny foster children, sends a message of hope as much for her own family as for the rest for us. In blue sidewalk chalk, they’re shown carefully coloring in the outlined words, “We can do this.”

Daily interactions with students are what Erik Covert ’16 missed the most while teaching remotely during the pandemic. “I found it much more challenging to determine the daily mood of the class and adapt lessons to best meet the needs of the class. It definitely made me more creative in my teaching, as I had to make lessons around what students had at home.”

The poignant photo of his empty 6 th grade classroom “demonstrated the adaptability and perseverance that people showed during that time. A year ago, many people would have laughed at the suggestion that they could attend church services online, work from home, and even have their children take online classes. However, in just a few weeks most of the country shifted to that way of life.”

When Dan Hunter ’79 told his wife during the pandemic that he was going to “work,” the retired Hunter meant to his garage to spend time woodworking. It’s his self-taught hobby.

A relatively new hobby for Hunter, he works mostly with “live edge” wood that retains the original unfinished edges. He does everything from felling the trees and cutting the slabs to finishing the boards. He makes benches, coffee tables, and serving tables, but from the smaller pieces, he is crafting cutting boards, and carving spoons, walking sticks, and caricature figures, as seen in his photo.

Hunter retired as a senior technical consultant from Alcoa in 2015, which is when he found the time to add woodworking to his other hobbies of photography and bonsai. His wife, Danette (Bingle ’79) Hunter, is a Health Room secretary for Franklin Regional Middle School in Murrysville, Pa. While the schools were closed, she helped to sew many face masks for her colleagues still required to be at the school.

They also check in on their Western Pennsylvania parents. As to their new daily routine, Dan reports that it “consists of having our coffee, breakfast, read the paper, I tell Danette I’m going to work (i.e., the garage), she goes to the sewing room and makes masks, and we meet up again at dinner.”

Jonathan Althausen ’11 and his wife, Lacey, were one of the many couples facing a childcare dilemma when the pandemic hit. While both continued to work, Jon stayed home in Dublin, Ohio, with the couple’s two children, Elizabeth, 4, and Joseph, 2, pictured. Lacey is a primary care pediatrician.

Althausen is able to be at home with them because he works remotely in his new job with Mureti, which he began in January 2020. It is a start-up company formed by his Grove City electrical engineering classmate Mike Hollis ’11.

As to his daily charges, “They love to go on bike rides to the park, scooter around the block, play “dinosaur” around the house, paint and color various animals, and (take) the occasional car ride listening to our favorite family songs,” said Jon of the kids’ recent favorite activities.

He reported in late summer that Ohio had re-opened many things but their family has limited who and how they connect with others. For example, Althausen said, “we made the tough choice to not travel to a family wedding in July.”

He no longer takes the kids to grocery stores as part of their usual weekly routine. “Surprisingly, that has been a hole in our outings that we’ve missed. Another surprise is how thankful I have become for local parks and playgrounds, especially once they reopened. They have been a gem and blessing to have.”

Shawna (Martin ’95) Haynes and her daughters helped to fill a physical need during the pandemic as seen in her photo, providing 100-120 lunches to children of the North Side of Pittsburgh. The children were part of the ministries of Urban Impact Foundation and needed food during the school shutdown.

Haynes learned of the project through her employer, Eden Christian Academy. With help from daughters Anna and Ellie, both 16 and Eden students, the Haynes family decorated bags with Bible verses and encouraging words before filling the colorful sacks with lunch foods. The ladies did this twice during the Spring, as did many other Eden families.

A self-proclaimed busy person, Haynes says it was “definitely a change when everything started to close down. However, I was surprised that I enjoyed the slower pace and the simplicity of the season. I valued the time at home to linger over my devotions with the Lord. …With Brandon [husband Brandon Haynes ’96] no longer traveling for work and activities being cancelled, (the family) spent evenings playing games and watching movies.” And should the need return to pack more lunches for students, she says “we will definitely be looking for the opportunity to participate again.”

The congregation at St. Stephen Lutheran Church in New Kingstown, Pa., has been very supportive of its pastor, Rev. Matthew Best ’98, and the need to move services online.

“Many are grateful for the opportunity to worship, even if it isn’t in person,” Best shared. “One of the neatest things that has happened is the informal fellowship time that happens before worship. We use Zoom for worship and people log in early so they can check in with each other. … It’s been one of the most unexpected and important parts of worship actually. It’s about building and maintaining community in a way that is available to people.”

In his submitted photo, Best is conducting the worship service and preaching live in front of a laptop computer. He is joined in the sanctuary and assisted by his wife, music director and organist Abigail (Noss ’98) Best and their four children, who fill in with singing, sound, and filming the procession. “It’s not a matter of just doing the same thing in front of a camera – so many aspects of worship change.”

As to blessings in a pandemic, Matt said, “I see blessings from God all the time. There are people hearing the message of the Gospel for the first time because of worship going online. There are people who are receiving food and other help because the church had to get creative. We are blessed to be forced to answer the question – why does the church exist, instead of just cruising along as we’ve always done.”

Jessica (Arnett ’03) Campagna, DO is a hospitalist physician in southwestern Indiana. “I was social distancing before it was cool. My family was being cautious about viral contagions almost two months before the rest of the country because I did not want my infant child to be exposed to the flu. As a result, our family was feeling the effects of isolation and loneliness weeks before the rest of the country.”

Campagna now wears a respirator mask at work, but as shown in her photo submission, she was “instructed to wear the surgical masks over the filters to protect them from physical soiling (blood splatter, phlegm/mucus, etc.). The surgical masks, however, kept falling off. After that photo, I sewed my own filter covers that could be washed periodically.” As a frontline healthcare professional, she has noted that continued shortages of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) like surgical masks and gowns are still a daily concern for her and the other healthcare heroes with whom she serves.

“It has been good to reassess priorities. God and family are all that matter now. My career is not as important to me, only as a vehicle for showing God’s love. Making money is not as important to me, only to pay off student loan debt, buy necessities, and for giving. Thanks to the relatively low cost of Grove City College, I was able to go into medical school without any undergraduate student loan debt.”

One thing that gets her through the tough days? “It is a blessing to take the time to count my blessings. When the whole world is struggling and all seems hopeless, you have to count your blessings.”

On that one day in May 2020, alumni provided a personal glimpse into the ways they were both looking inward and reaching outward, each in his or her own circumstances.

Whether the task was teaching or working remotely, foster parenting, serving on the front lines of the pandemic, or caring for loved ones, Laura (Doherty ’14) Collins’ words ring true for alumni everywhere. “It’s the hardest thing we’ve ever done, but God’s timing is perfect and He’s showing us without a doubt that we CAN do this.”

And we still are.

View more photos from A Day in the Life at www.gcc.edu/dayinthelife