Oral history interview with Jonathan West

Oral history interview with Jonathan West

Jonathan West of Manchester, Vermont, discusses his family's experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. He focuses on his and his husband's experiences as parents. He mentions road tripping across the eastern and southern United States immediately prior to the pandemic and how their plans to continue building their family were impacted by COVID. He describes caring for a hospitalized newborn across state lines in the first year of the pandemic. He also touches on other new parenting challenges posed by the pandemic, including remote kindergarten, the transition to in-person first grade, being unable to find baby formula, and an accidental fire in their house that hospitalized their youngest child and forced the family to live in a hotel during lockdown. Separately, he reflects on the experiences of contracting COVID after a social outing, getting tested by personnel in hazmat suits, and not being able to say goodbye to his dying grandmother. Additional topics include his family's stance on vaccination, attitudes towards COVID mandates in Manchester, and people moving to Vermont to escape cities.

At the time of this interview in 2024, Jonathan West and his husband, Thomas, lived in Manchester, Vermont, with their four adopted children. At the start of the pandemic, they had two children and fostered to adopt their third in 2020. West is a software developer and worked from home both before and during the pandemic.

Sponsored by the Institute of Museum and Library Services MA-251676-OMS-22.

2024-07-22

Collecting COVID-19: A Vermont Story Project

AudioFileCOVID-076

MP3

WAV

Audio file

Permission to publish material from the Collecting COVID-19: A Vermont Story Project may be obtained from the Vermont Historical Society.

Gustin, Amanda Kay

West, Jonathan

55 min., 18 sec.

Vermont Historical Society Library, 60 Washington Street, Barre, VT 05641-4215