My 92-year-old friend was full of life, until the pandemic cut her off from the world

In my job as a CBC reporter, I've witnessed the impact of COVID-19 on so many things we take for granted. But what's hit closest to home is the way the pandemic cut off a friendship I made in my off hours, volunteering at a seniors home in Nelson, B.C. 

Jean Grevstad was 91 and full of hope and energy for the future. For months, over many visits, she told me the story of her life; "a life well lived," she said. 

When COVID-19 cut Jean off from the outside world this year, her life deteriorated. So did Jean. Which is why I want to tell her story now. 

It was my Jack Russell, Layla, that won over the residents at Mountain Lake Seniors Community. I started volunteering at Mountain Lake about three years ago, reading to seniors. I would bring Layla along for the visits.

The community is perched on a hill above town, with views of Kootenay Lake and the surrounding mountains. It's a peaceful, lovely place and Layla, it turned out, was a bigger hit than the books. Or me, for that matter.

On one visit, the activity coordinator pulled me aside and asked if I'd listen to the life story of a resident in the assisted living wing, and write it out for her family. I agreed. And that is how I met Jean. Jean and I met in the activity room, and over several months she told me about her life, one story at a time.

Jean was slightly stooped, had one bad knee and some difficulty hearing, but she was in pretty good physical shape. I would listen to her stories, type them up later, and bring them back the following week for revision and editing. Jean had a sharp recollection of the past and often brought along pictures and documents from her life to our afternoons together.

Jean had a happy, yet somewhat lonely childhood as an only child on a farm in central Saskatchewan.

"It was a simple, difficult life but I don't remember thinking we were poor or in any way, or missed out on things," she told me. "My only complaint was loneliness. I could not understand at the time why I was an only child with the closest neighbours miles away." 

It wasn't until she was around ten years old that Jean learned she had been adopted by Elsie and Earnest Pickens in 1927. Her birth parents were an unmarried couple she would never meet.

It was the first great shock of her life.

Jean lived a typical prairie farm life of a century ago, going to school in a one-room schoolhouse and helping out on the farm. When she was a teenager her father died, and Jean was sent off to Prince Albert to live. She earned her room and board by housekeeping for a husband and his infirm wife, all the while attending business school.

Making her way in a man's world

Later, Jean put her education to good use, working all over the Prairies.

"I had all kinds of jobs with the bank, eventually becoming the first woman manager for branches in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Northwest Ontario," Jean told me. "Of course I still didn't make as much as the male managers and as a woman wasn't even eligible for a pension. This was still very much a man's world".

Jean met and married Bill Grevstad, and the couple had two daughters, before divorcing in the 1970s.

A few decades later tragedy struck,  after one of Jean's daughters, Lisa, was diagnosed with cancer. She passed away in 2009.

"A mother is not supposed to outlive her children but Lisa was taken from us at 53. I don't want to talk too much about that. Some scars never heal."

A bestseller?

Jean's story was a mix of success and sadness. I found myself looking forward to our visits. I admired how she had lived such a simple, yet happy life, without any of the conveniences we take for granted.

I must have spoken to her a couple dozen times. I typed up the final version of her story and presented it to her in the summer of 2019. She was thrilled with how it turned out. We joked that it was going to be a bestseller one day.

I continued my visits to Mountain Lake, with Layla, always popping over to see how Jean was doing.

The lockdown and loneliness

The following winter COVID-19 hit.

Jean was locked down at Mountain Lake with all the other residents. The pandemic brought an end to not just family visits but visits by any outsider.

Her granddaughter Jasmine Lysenko phoned almost every day but says the loneliness took its toll on Jean and the other residents.

"They had no kids, no singing, no music, no visitors and then some of their programming run by volunteers wasn't happening either," said Lysenko. "It wasn't just the family visits, It was their life enrichment they call it up there, their fun."

Lysenko says that without outside contact her grandmother's health went downhill.

Jean Grevstad died on August 14th, 2020, a year after we'd finished recording her life story. Lysenko has no doubt Jean's loneliness played a role in her death. Her doctor, Dr Kevin McKechnie, agrees.

"I think Jean improved largely because she came back here where she was surrounded by family continually," said McKenchnie. "I don't think it's a coincidence that I am seeing so many of my elderly patients deteriorate rapidly over the months of COVID."

The price of isolation

Lysenko and her family do not blame Mountain Lake for Jean's decline in any way. They were doing what they thought was best to protect all the seniors in the home. And the strategy worked. COVID-19 was kept out of places like Mountain Lake after sweeping through facilities in Ontario, Quebec and Vancouver with devastating effect. 

Still, Jean's family says there is a cost to keeping the elderly away from family or other visitors – and that cost is steep.

I was saddened by Jean's death and the fact that I couldn't visit my friends at Mountain Lake.

So, with her family's blessing I decided to present her story in a radio documentary for CBC's The Doc Project [listen at the top of the page]. 

Much of the story is in Jean's own words.

"I'm 91 at the writing of this story and soon to be 92 but in strong enough health that I don't expect to depart this world any time soon," Jean told me. "I have three lovely grandchildren and two great grandchildren. I have a home now in Nelson where it is peaceful and beautiful.

'It's been quite a ride. And I like to think, a life well lived." 

About the Producer

Bob Keating is CBC's reporter in southeast B.C. He is also the happy owner of Layla, a Jack Russell-Chihuahua mix who has won the hearts of the residents of Mountain Lake Seniors' Community, in Nelson, B.C.