Pandemic Journals

On the following pages you’ll find personal dispatches from the local trenches of the pandemic. Amid the onslaught of emergency announcements, school closures and public health warnings, we wanted to mark these unforgettable times the best way we know how here at In The Hills – by diving into as many stories as we could.

Collecting these accounts from individuals across Headwaters is our way of making sense of how the pandemic has affected and continues to affect our community.

From a nurse who suffered from Covid-19 with her whole family to a mayor whose town faced a devastating outbreak at a long-term care home, we learn about just how cruel the disease caused by this coronavirus can be.

Others, including a piano teacher plying her trade by video call and a teenager stuck at home with her thoughts, show us how crucial creativity, reinvention and personal connection will be in the coming months.

We thank everyone who shared a glimpse of their lives with us.

Please visit the stories below for more journals. If you’d still like to share yours, we’ll be collecting stories until August 1 – we look forward to hearing from you.

• • Sharyn Ayliffe – Two weeks into her new job as theatre manager, the curtain dropped and the house went dark.
  • Brenda Bot – A Mono farm sustains itself and its network of charitable good deeds.
  • Chris Broom – How an Orangeville soccer coach stayed connected when practice was cancelled.
  • Melissa Cianfarani – How this Bolton emergency childcare provider helps frontline workers do their jobs.
  • Sharon Edmonds – A yoga teacher discovers the Zen in Zoom.
  • Vanessa Kreuzer – How the duo behind Orangeville’s Lavender Blue Catering are keeping Dufferin fed.
  • Karla Leger – A piano teacher keeps her music school running on her iPad.
  • Pepe Lopez – On a Mulmur farm, an essential seasonal worker misses his Mexican homeland.
  • Lori McNeil-Chong -A hands-on Caledon interior designer gets it done from a distance.
  • Wade Mills – Shelburne’s mayor reflects on both the tragedy that gripped his town and the compassion it inspired.
  • RaDeana Montgomery – How an amateur stitcher found purpose in making masks.
  • Jane Mountain – This volunteer now makes grocery deliveries to seniors for free.
  • Tray Nevin – This Orangeville nurse contracted Covid-19 – along with her whole family.
  • Kate Perreault – A Mono teen reassesses her idea of “normal.”
  • Winston Uytenbogaart – An Orangeville artist pays tribute to frontline workers – in verse.
  • Heather Webber – The Upper Credit Humane Society’s Heather Webber reports a rise in people willing to foster shelter pets.