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When Thelma Coward-Ince donned her uniform in 1954, she was believed to be the first Black reservist in the Royal Canadian Navy.
Crosses are displayed in memory of residents who died from COVID-19 at the Camilla Care Community facility in Mississauga, Ont., on Nov. 19, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette
When Thelma Coward-Ince donned her uniform in 1954, she was believed to be the first Black reservist in the Royal Canadian Navy.
Decades later, the strong, hard-working great-grandmother moved into the Northwood long-term care facility in Halifax due to dementia. She lived there for five years among other navy veterans until a deadly virus began silently and rapidly spreading last spring.
Kelly Geraldine Malone
Crosses are displayed in memory of residents who died from COVID-19 at the Camilla Care Community facility in Mississauga, Ont., on Nov. 19, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette January 31, 2021 - 10:17 AM
When Thelma Coward-Ince donned her uniform in 1954, she was believed to be the first Black reservist in the Royal Canadian Navy.
Decades later, the strong, hard-working great-grandmother moved into the Northwood long-term care facility in Halifax due to dementia. She lived there for five years among other navy veterans until a deadly virus began silently and rapidly spreading last spring.
Coward-Ince, a woman who spent her life breaking down racial barriers and became a pillar of the Black community in Halifax, died April 17 after testing positive for the novel coronavirus.
More than 20,000 Canadians have now died from COVID-19. Since the first death last March, health officials across the country have shared the grim daily numbers of the pandemic’s fatal toll. There have been grandparents, parents, single mothers and children. Some were health-care workers and others who worked to ensure Canadians had essential supplies. Many who died, like Coward-Ince, were residents of crowded care homes, which served as fuel to the fire of the virus during the first and second waves of the pandemic. Curtis Jonnie, better known as Shingoose, left behind a legacy that many have said set the course for generations of Indigenous musicians.