Jack Smith, a decorated Korean War veteran, beamed with joy despite having dementia when his family last visited him at the Veterans Memorial Home at Vineland in March 2020, just days before COVID-19 forced the facility into lockdown.
Five months later — after Jack had gone through two bouts with COVID and visitations at the state-run nursing home resumed — his wife and stepdaughter barely recognized him.
“He lost so much weight, you could see his chest bones,” said Deborah Felmey, Jack’s stepdaughter. “He could barely move. His skin was dry and flaky. He didn’t know who we were. He barely reacted to us. It was awful.”
Jack spent the next year slowly withering away, until he died in October 2021 at 90.
While Jack was battling a form of dementia known for its rapid onset, his family says he was never the same after contracting COVID and believe it hastened his death. His stepdaughter and wife also criticized his care since they could no longer advocate on his behalf as they had done before the pandemic, because visitations were so infrequent and controlled. One of Jack’s sons disputed this and said he received excellent care from the Vineland staff.
A spokeswoman for the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs said Wednesday that department officials could not comment on Jack Smith’s care or his family’s account due to “privacy concerns.”
“Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, our homes have worked to implement health and safety guidelines on behalf of residents and have taken steps to improve the services and protections offered to residents,” Maj. Agneta E. Murnan said in a statement.
Jack Smith’s slow demise is also one of the few accounts to emerge from the Vineland home, a sprawling, 312-bed facility overseen by Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration that has provided veterans care for more than a century.
The pandemic’s impact at Vineland is often overlooked because of the horrific death toll at the state’s two other veterans homes, in Paramus and Menlo Park. Vineland had 14 COVID victims. Paramus and Menlo Park had more than 200 combined, and many families have publicly criticized the treatment their loved ones received in their final days.
Visitations were limited because nursing homes throughout the state became ground zero for the virus as administrators tried to limit the spread of a disease that killed thousands of residents. Still, the lack of seeing family took a toll on their well-being.
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Jack is not counted as one of Vineland’s victims. His death certificate doesn’t mention COVID, even as a secondary cause of death. But his family believes he ought to be counted among the pandemic’s victims, and suspects there are many more at nursing homes across New Jersey and throughout the U.S. who have wasted away for months, even years, after being infected.
“Jack is what I would call a side casualty of COVID, the ones that don’t get counted,” Deborah said.
From combat vet to retiree
A Cumberland County native, Jack Smith was one of 11 children and spent much of his youth working — whether shining shoes for GIs at Millville Airport during World War II or showing patrons to their seats at the historic Levoy Theatre.
Jack was drafted into the Army at the height of the Korean War and was sent to the front lines, although he wrote to his mother in letters that he was still stationed stateside so she wouldn’t worry.
In Korea, he was in the middle of some of the fiercest battles, including the infamous Pork Chop Hill, where more than 200 U.S. soldiers died. He received a battlefield promotion to sergeant after so many men in his unit were killed, and was eventually awarded several decorations, including three bronze stars.
When Jack came home, he landed a job at West Pharmaceutical in Millville and worked there for almost 40 years while raising a family and painting houses on the side.
He spent the last 40 years of his life with his second wife, Marilyn. About five years ago while Jack and Marilyn were enjoying their retirement, he began having problems remembering things. Jack was diagnosed with Lewy body dementia — a rapid decline of normal brain function.
The effects were fast. He slipped in and out of the present. He would wake up in the middle of the night and wander. He began to speak incoherently.
Jack had been a classic-car buff who loved to tinker with old engines and bring them back to glory, even reupholstering the seats and applying a new paint job. Now, he could barely feed himself.
“It felt like he had changed almost overnight,” Deborah said. “It was hard to watch somebody who could do anything, now not do anything.”
Lockdown at Vineland
Jack spent about a year in a private nursing home while on the waiting list to get into Vineland.
When he was admitted more than three years ago, Jack was placed in the dementia unit, which was under lockdown to prevent residents from wandering away. Marilyn would visit almost every day.
As COVID-19 began to spread across New Jersey in 2020, all units of the three veterans homes went on lockdown in the second week of March. This worried Marilyn and Deborah, because Jack would no longer have an advocate able to see how things were going inside the home. They had already complained to management about Jack’s being put into a room and isolated when he was misbehaving, after other residents’ visitors told them about the incident.
Unlike the chaos that ensued at the Paramus and Menlo Park homes, Vineland was largely spared the worst of the pandemic during its first months. COVID spread less rapidly in South Jersey, where the population density is a fraction of that in the northern and central parts of the state.
Still, communication with the Vineland staff was spotty. “You had to be proactive,” Deborah said. “We would only get updates if we called in.”
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Jack had a hard time understanding a regular phone call, let alone a FaceTime call the staff tried to set up. In late April 2020, Deborah was told that Jack was running a fever. A few days later, on April 29, he became one of the first residents to test positive for COVID-19.
Jack was moved to Vineland’s auditorium, which had become an area to isolate residents who tested positive. Jack’s condition went up and down. He stayed there for more than a month, Deborah said.
Jack was eventually moved to a private room far from the nurse’s station. On June 22, 2020, he tested positive again for COVID.
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Getting information on his condition was difficult and frustrating. “You called one shift, you got one answer,” Deborah said. “You called another shift, you got another answer. Some of the nurses were telling us he was sitting up and talking. Jack couldn’t talk. He was speaking gibberish before the lockdown.”
Kevin Smith, one of Jack’s sons from his first marriage, said his father received excellent care from the Vineland staff.
“I am pleased with the effort given by the staff to help him in his time of diminished capacity,” Smith said. “He was laughing and cutting it up with staff until his last days.”
Vineland’s first reported COVID death came in early May 2020, more than a month after dozens began dying from COVID at Paramus and Menlo Park. In total, Menlo Park had 111 probable and confirmed deaths, Paramus 92 and Vineland 14.
After reports by NorthJersey.com surfaced about lax infection control and other problems at Paramus and Menlo Park, Murphy replaced the CEOs of the Paramus and Menlo Park homes in October 2020 but did not change leadership at Vineland. Three investigations by authorities into the high death toll at the other two homes are still ongoing.
Despite fewer cases at Vineland, Jack’s family wasn’t granted an in-person visit until mid-July — outdoors and 10 feet apart. When Jack was wheeled out, they couldn’t believe his condition.
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The family was convinced Jack had been bedridden with no activities and no stimulation since he had contracted COVID.
“By then he didn’t know who either of us were,” Deborah said. “Before then he used to smile when we were around him. He didn’t even do that anymore. We had lost so much time with him.”
Final days
They kept visiting, but colder weather and a COVID surge in the fall of 2020 forced all visits to stop. They didn’t see each other in person again until the spring of 2021, even though the family and Jack had been vaccinated for months.
They visited as often as possible last summer, even as the delta variant began to spread. Jack was barely conscious at some of the visits.
In late October, Jack’s family was told that he might have only days to live. A compassionate care visit for terminal residents was arranged. Marilyn visited Jack the morning of Oct. 24, and Deborah planned to drive up from her Delaware home and see him the next day.
But Jack died that night. Alone.
Jack’s death certificate states that he died of pneumonia. His family wants it to state that he also died from COVID.
“Jack wasn’t going to live for years and years, but COVID hastened his death,” Deborah said. “There’s no question. He wasn’t the same after he got it. He just wasted away.”
Jack’s family said they want to make sure that what happened to him does not happen to any other resident.
“He was a decorated veteran, but in the end, he wasn’t treated like one,” Deborah said. “It’s a disgrace.”
Scott Fallon has covered the COVID-19 pandemic since its onset in March 2020. To get unlimited access to the latest news about the pandemic’s impact on New Jersey, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.
Email: fallon@northjersey.com
Twitter: @newsfallon
