Telling Your Story: Documenting COVID-19 in Indiana Collection Examples

Classical Covid

“Classical Covid” is a collaboration between Indianapolis-based pianist Liwen Weng who is originally from Taiwan, and West Lafayette artist Tracey Jen. Both women are alumni of Indiana University Bloomington. The State of Emergency and Stay-At-Home order has inspired their creativity. They hope that their music and art can be therapeutic for people during this difficult time.

— Liwen Weng, Indianapolis and Tracy Jen, West Lafayette

Song

My four oldest kids at lunch, said, “Hey, we wrote a song last night–do you want to hear it?” It was so fun and accurately described their disappointment at all the things that got so suddenly cancelled. Here is a copy we recorded after lunch on March 20, 2020.

— Jenny Larsen, Zionsville

Teacher Parade

Teacher parade while students were forced to stay at home.

— Robert Lugo, Noblesville

Bored

This was a photo that my sister and I created during our time of Social Distancing. It was something that we thought would be fun to create. It is a photo of our bodies spelling out “bored”. The female in the picture is Caroline States (age 20) the male in the picture is Graeme States (age 20). The photographer was Kathryn Womack-States (Age 52). The art piece was photo shopped by Caroline States.

— Graeme States, Anderson

Window Visit Granny

An example of a “window visit” – part of our “new normal” in the midst of COVID-19 safety precautions. Lizzie Mae Barrett, a 103 year old resident of Heritage House Rehabilitation & Healthcare Center in Connersville, IN, is having a window visit from Chris and Wayne Greeson (Chris shown). With this and many other such facilities halting in-person visits, people have found new ways like this to still keep spirits up.

— Steve Barrett, Connersville

Don’t Touch Your Face

This is an expressive self portrait depicting the topic of touching your face during this pandemic. They keep saying; “Wash your hands! Don’t touch your face!” Yet I struggle with it every moment of the day. This piece depicts the struggle and paranoia that comes with the idea of touching your face. The sickness is lingering somewhere.

— Kat Thomas, Indianapolis

Flanner House Meal Prep

After sending all students home over health concerns, Flanner House leadership found an invaluable way to keep their staff at work; preparing and distributing food to families.

— Nico Selm, Indianapolis

Skeeball

We had just found out that the kids would be out of school for over a month, and because I work at a restaurant and all restaurants are now doing carryout only, I will basically be out of work for an unknown amount of time. We are also on a Stay-at-Home order from the government, so we needed to find something to do that was cheap/free, would keep us busy, and we could do at home. We like being creative, and we like spending time together, so we gathered all of the recyclable materials we could find in our house and came up with the idea to make an arcade for our house. This is the first game we made.

— Rachel Miller, Indianapolis

Covid Wedding

It is a summary of our experience having been married in Noblesville, Indiana Feb 29, having had a wonderful reception, heading to our honeymoon to later discover an attendee at our wedding had been contaminated at a Boston BioGen meeting and unknown to him transmitted this to guests at our wedding (8-10 including us). The originator was person #2 diagnosed in Indiana. Jerry Ford is my husband now who experienced this with me.

— Shelley Padgett, Noblesville

Working Remotely

This is a picture of my husband, Kieran Jackson, working from home. I know this is a common occurrence for many during this time, but I thought this might be of interest because my husband is a therapist. Due to the COVID-19 quarantine, he and his counseling office are all working from home. Mental health is SO IMPORTANT, especially during these uncertain times where anxiety and depression are the norm, and my husband and his colleagues are performing therapy and counseling sessions through Microsoft Teams over voice calls online. He and many others are trying their best to make sure that people have access to mental health resources, even during “stay at home” orders.

— Anna Jackson, Warsaw

Walking with my children

Open Document

I wrote a poem about going on a walk with my kids during the period of social distancing. In it, I note that the natural world reflects how we are feeling.

—  Cara Howard, Carmel

Oral History

Open Document

— Rafia Amina Khader, Indianapolis