At 105, D.C.’s oldest coronavirus victim was a woman of faith who lived alone until she turned 100

Edna Adams, 105, who died of covid-19 last week. with her nephew Bill Campbell, left, and his partner, Mark Kelley. (Family photo)

Edna Adams defied expectations her entire life.

Born in 1914, she lived to see the other side of the 1918 flu pandemic, women’s suffrage, the Great Depression and two world wars — all before she moved from her home in Clover, S.C., to the District in the mid-1950s.

At a time when housewives were the American ideal, Adams worked for more than two decades as a sales associate at Jelleff’s, a department store in Northwest Washington, until it closed in 1979.

After the death of her husband, Thomas Adams, she never remarried, instead living alone for more than 40 years — until after her 100th birthday.

She was a woman of faith and conviction who devotedly attended Sunday services at Rock Creek Baptist Church but never hesitated to accept and embrace her nephew Bill Campbell, and his partner, Mark Kelley.

“Once she had her mind made up about something, Aunt Edna’s was the only opinion that mattered,” said Campbell, 80, who lives in the District. “If you had a different opinion, well then she would constantly correct you.”

Last week, Adams came down with a fever. Her caretakers at the Inspire Rehabilitation and Health Center, where she lived, called Campbell to say it was nothing to worry about. The next day, she was transferred to George Washington University Hospital, where she tested positive for covid-19.

Campbell said the hospital told him that he and Kelley could visit Adams — one last time. Hospital staffers gave them protective gear before allowing them to enter Adams’s room.

She looked like she was sleeping, Campbell said. But as they spoke, he said, her eyes flickered in their direction.

“I think she must have sensed that we were there with her,” he said. “She seemed to know.”

Adams died the next morning. She was 105, the city’s oldest victim of the virus and one of the oldest nationwide.

It was not known how Adams was exposed to the coronavirus, though Campbell suspects it was from her nursing home.

At least 13 nursing homes in the District have reported coronavirus cases since the public health crisis began, resulting in more than 200 infections and at least 16 fatalities.

On the day Adams died, the Inspire Rehabilitation and Health Center reported that four patients and eight staffers had tested positive for the virus, according to data released by D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D).

Since his aunt’s death, Campbell has busied himself trying to honor her last request — that after nearly half a century she be reunited with her late husband in the same burial plot.