Oral history interview with Ashley Van Zandt

Oral history interview with Ashley Van Zandt

Ashley Van Zandt of Lyndonville, Vermont, discusses her experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, including how long COVID symptoms have impacted her life. She speaks eloquently about her struggles after contracting COVID, which included a prolonged loss of taste and smell. Specifically, she describes needing to go to Texas for a novel treatment to recover about 75 percent of her ability to smell and taste. She also shares how her work at Catamount Arts in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, changed during the pandemic. She explains how their arts programs transitioned to either virtual delivery or pre-recording musical events and having people attend events at different sites including the state college parking lot in pods. She touches on her husband's work in the IT department at Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital in St. Johnsbury.

Ashley Van Zandt began at Catamount Arts in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, around 2016 and was their development and communications director and First Night North coordinator at the time of this interview in 2024. She completed her bachelor's degree in early childhood education from Lyndon State College in 2009 and worked at St. Johnsbury Pediatrics before joining Catamount Arts. She was pregnant with her daughter at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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

2024-04-23

Collecting COVID-19: A Vermont Story Project

AudioFileCOVID-077

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.

Johnson, Mark

Van Zandt, Ashley

1 hr., 42 min., 47 sec.

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