Those We Lost: A video goodbye for Uncasville man
Warren B. Rogers Sr. of Uncasville celebrated Christmas morning 2019 the way he always did: videotaping his family members as they opened each package, then carefully staging the gifts on the living room couch for more recording.
By March, when he turned 88, his son Warren Rogers Jr. said Rogers was fighting norovirus contracted while visiting his wife, Barbara, in the hospital, where she was recovering from back surgery. He ended up hospitalized, then went to a nursing home to recover. He was regaining his strength, and his family was preparing to take him home, when he spiked a fever.
On April 30, Rogers died of COVID-19. His family had said goodbye to him via Zoom video conference.
A United States Air Force veteran and retiree of Electric Boat, where he'd been a purchasing processor at the end of his 40-year career, Rogers and his wife remained independent in their Montville home. He had significant vision loss due to macular degeneration, but still enjoyed his hobbies: history, astronomy, collecting coins and stamps and every play made by the UConn women's basketball team.
Rogers was hospitalized at Lawrence + Memorial Hospital, transferred to the Bride Brook Health and Rehabilitation Center in Niantic, then moved back to the hospital. At both facilities, the staff "worked their heart out" for him, said his son. He said changes should be made to prevent future outbreaks, but he doesn't fault anybody for his father's death.
"These people were so good to take care of everybody and do what they had to do," Rogers Jr. said. "They were given a bad deck to deal with."
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