Mardine Wortham collapses, sobbing, after viewing her mother Esther Wortham, 84, for the last time during her funeral as funeral director and county coroner Scotty Meredith looks on at Meredith-Nowell Funeral Home in Clarksdale, MS. Esther Wortham died of complications of COVID-19 at a nursing home in Cleveland, MS.
Defoliated cotton plants sit in a field awaiting harvest south of Lambert, MS.
Willy Hentz cleans up up around the service station where his brother Fred “Master Roni” Hentz used to play dominos with his friends in Marks, MS. Fred Hentz died of COVID-19, likely after playing dominos with an infected person inside the service station on a hot day.
Members of the Mississippi National Guard and Department of Health prepare to administer a COVID-19 test for a teacher outside the Sheriff’s Department in Marks, MS. Many members of the community complained about the cost of COVID-19 testing and the lack of access, while often not knowing that free testing would be available weekly in Marks if they signed up for appointments.
Lydia Rios prays over her husband Noe Rios alongside their children and family at their home in Dublin, MS. Noe Rios has cancer in three places in his body and already suffers from debilitating back pain from a broken and repaired back, but the family was hit extra hard after one of their three sons, Neftali “Neff” Rios, a nurse, died in April of COVID-19 he likely contracted working at a hospital around COVID-19 patients.
Trevarius Smith, an inmate at the Quitman County Jail, washes a Sheriff Deputy’s car in Marks, MS. Smith was back in jail on a parole violation for smoking marijuana after being released from prison for burglary charges. Despite being unable to have visitations due to COVID-19, Smith felt his stay in Quitman County Jail was far preferable to being sent to the infamous Parchman Farm, Mississippis maximum security facility and the home of the state execution chamber.
Pastor Robert Lawrence prays as he commits the body of Esther Wortham to her final rest at a family cemetery in Marks, MS on Saturday, Sept. 19, 2020. Wortham, a mother of 10 with 29 grandchildren, 28 great-grandchildren, and 3 great-great-grandchildren, died of COVID-19 at a nursing home in Clarksdale, MS.
Volunteers, including members of the Clarksdale Fire Department, distribute approximately 20,000 pounds of food to somewhere between 500 and 600 families as a part of a monthly food distribution program run by a nonprofit called Care Station in Clarksdale, MS. Clarksdale and the surrounding area in the Mississippi Delta is a food desert, with many people lacking access to grocery stores without having to travel distances of 30-45 minutes or paying people $30 for a ride to the grocery store.
Two men work to fix a broken irrigation pump on Robbie Pollard’s farm in Marks, MS. Pollard runs a small farm growing consumable vegetables to sell and distribute throughout the region to help provide fresh produce in a food desert where a lack of access to healthy food often leads to health issues.
Cleo Saddler waives goodbye to staff from an Amtrak train as it makes one of its twice daily stops on its route between Chicago and New Orleans in Marks, MS. The Amtrak station was a 20-year effort with the hopes to bring tourism to Marks, but that tourism failed to materialize. Meanwhile Saddler goes to welcome or send off travelers every day for the last two years the station has been open, stopping only for the two weeks she was ill with COVID-19. The former school teacher suffered a brain aneurysm in 2004 and traveled 30 minutes to a hospital before being sent home after 7 hours without being diagnosed and in the end spent 2 hours on the road to three different hospitals before she received treatment.
A man walks down the street in the city of Marks, MS.
Dr. Goly Henry works a dental consultation for Nancy Coleman at his office in Marks, MS. Coleman had only three upper teeth remaining and was considering removing her teeth so she could get a full set of dentures to improve quality of life. Dr. Henry is the only dentist in Quitman County and has wanted to retire for years but has been unwilling to close his office completely without someone committed to replacing him. He speaks with certainty saying that if he closes his office before someone replaces him, there will likely never be another dentist in the county.
The building that formerly housed the Quitman County Hospital sits empty in Mark, MS. The hospital closed in late 2016, leaving most people in Quitman County at least 30 minutes from the nearest hospital and oftentimes over an hour to a trauma center. One former employee described the hospital as “a bandaid hospital,” stating “but sometimes a bandaid will hold. We saved a lot of lives.”
Jeffrey Taylor, left and Kenneth Rudd fish a branch of the Little Tallahatchie River in Enid, MS.
Annesia Hilson sits on the couch in her grandmother Shirley Taylor’s house in Lambert, MS. Hilson’s grandmother, the mayor of Lambert, cares for her and her two siblings who are food insecure and lack internet at home for in-home schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic, but their close proximity to each other and their visiting neighbors and the reliance of rural towns on social capital means that they are at high risk for COVID-19.
Bill Knight, publisher of the Quitman County Democrat, looks at the window to see if the county Emergency Management Administrator’s truck is parked down the street, during an interview at his office in Marks, MS. Knight suffers from severe Crohn’s Disease, recently complicated by a bout with kidney stones, and his medication runs $85,000 a year while he lives around an hour or more from specialists to help manage his illness.
Jaleesa Coleman and David Glasper chat in the back break room at the Quitman County Ambulance Service in Marks, MS. The ambulance service did not have an actual ambulance until 1976, using hearses for years with no formal medical training, but even with drastic improvements some of the staff spend weeks or months either on shift or on call due to shortage of staff and resources, meaning some of the staff live and sleep at the EMS building.
Anna Lee Smith, 92, sleeps in the dining room of Smith’s daughter Shirley Taylor, Mayor of Lambert, MS. Smith suffers from Alzheimer’s disease and goes in and out of being verbal and moderately coherent to being lost and silent. Meanwhile Taylor takes care of her and two of Taylor’s grandchildren who are food insecure and have no internet at home to attend remote learning classes during the pandemic.
A hearse processes down Main Street, seen in the window of a funeral supply store in Marks, MS. Quitman County, where Marks is located, had only reported 5 COVID-19 deaths since the start of the pandemic, with neighboring Tallahatchie and Coahoma Counties both reporting 20 or more, but many people in the county believe the number may be much higher and fear a second deadly wave in the underserved community.
Jailer Jermaine Jones rubs his face as he supervises an inmate washing a deputy’s vehicle at the Quitman County Jail in Marks, MS. Trustees at the jail often earn the right to leave the jail with supervision (and sometimes within a short distance without supervision) to do maintenance work at the nearby courthouse and other county buildings, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic have not had visitation rights in months.
Birds fly over a rural road south of Marks, MS.
Dr. Mary Williams performs a checkup on Ja’kayah Wade, right, and Jarvarius Ewings, left, at her clinic in Clarksdale, MS. Williams had a difficult childhood, with a mother who she believes was likely developmentally delayed, and out of a large family she was the first to go to college despite having two children by the time she was 18. She’s created a successful practice and is known in the community to go above and beyond, going so far as to make COVID-19 house calls for home-bound people who were not even her patient.
Photos from patients hang on a board at the clinic of Dr. Richard Waller in Marks, MS. Dr. Waller and his partner (and uncle) Dr. James Warrington owned the Quitman County Hospital since 1973, shortly after it opened, and it was “in the hole” when they bought it. They traded being on call every other day until they both felt too worn down to run just to run the hospital between the two and hired extra doctors which, combined with the financial stress of an emergency room that often preformed primary care for people in poverty, was too much burden for the hospital which closed in 2016.
Robert Earl Johnson, a 35 year driver, and Paul Hester, a 71 year old EMT for the Quitman County Ambulance Service, bring breakfast from McDonalds a dialysis patient named Arthur Nickens who calls every other morning and complains about being unable to make breakfast in Lambert, MS. Nickens is an amputee and cannot drive, but other transportation options in the area cannot carry amputees so the ambulance service is often the only transportation option. Ambulance service director Paul Hester, who has worked in the service since 1969, pays out of pocket for Nickens’ breakfast on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturdays.
Dr. Richard Waller checks on the health of a patient, Thad Boyd, who came to the clinic with breathing, gastrointestinal, and sinus issues in addition to hypertension and other medical concerns that are overwhelmingly endemic in the area around Marks, MS. Dr. Waller ordered a COVID-19 test as a precaution.
Mitchell Camp, right, and his family pause while shooting clay pigeons as dove hunting fails to materialize at “The Peaceable Kingdom,” a 300 acre ranch belonging to Rev. Dr. Laurie and Jackie Jones in Enid, MS on Saturday, Sept. 12, 2020. Three members of his family including his wife, daughter, and and son in law, left, contracted COVID-19 likely due to their work in rural healthcare.
Inmates and a guard walk out of the Quitman County Jail to the Quitman County Courthouse, which is topped with words reading “Obedience to the Law is Liberty” in Marks, MS. Trustees at the jail often earn the right to leave the jail with supervision (and sometimes within a short distance without supervision) to do maintenance work at the nearby courthouse and other county buildings, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic have not had visitation rights in months.
A group of men socialize in Darling, MS. Community gatherings largely occur outside in the cooler hours of the day in the Mississippi Delta like this night where bottles of whiskey and other liquor were passed around between friends.
Players from the Madison Palmer Senior High School Dragons football team rest on the sidelines during practice in Marks, MS. The team had its season initially cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, then the season was reinstated, but after playing and winning one game their second game of the season was again canceled. Their competitors were unable to field a team, originally due to a quarantine shutdown and later due to players transferring to private schools which had not canceled their seasons.
Family gathers at the home of Camile Staten for breakfast the day after the funeral for Staten’s sister Rosa Wells in Marks, MS. Wells died of congestive heart failure after being diagnosed 20 years ago with scleroderma.
The casket containing the body of Esther Wortham, 84, sits under a tent after a graveside service at her family cemetery in Marks, MS. Wortham, a mother of 10 with 29 grandchildren, 28 great-grandchildren, and 3 great-great-grandchildren, died of COVID-19 at a nursing home in Clarksdale, MS.
The Coldwater River flows through the city of Marks, MS.