Stephanie's videos told her COVID was a hoax. Then came the pandemic, and everything changed. Laurie says sometimes they fought over her beliefs, but often they kept the conversation on things like the grandkids. Stephanie's fringe ideas were troubling, but the family still hung out. Even if I'd argued against them, she wouldn't have accepted my argument." Arnold says he wouldn't even look at them: "Watching them, to my way of thinking, would have reinforced that they were valid. is still alive reptilian aliens control the government. The videos covered a wide range of far-fetched conspiracy theories: JFK Jr. "She called me up one day and was like, 'All right, have you been watching these videos that Mom is sending us?'" Vikki says it was Laurie who was really the first to notice. Perhaps partially because she was isolated and feeling down, Stephanie got into watching strange videos and sending them to the rest of the family. It's where she felt really valued and strong and important." The loss of tennis from her life also had a psychological impact, says Vikki. The daughters grew up and started families of their own.
Stephanie and Arnold raised their two daughters, Vikki and Laurie, in Long Island. She was finding it hard to walk and had to have a stair lift installed in her house. Throughout her life, she had played tennis. Nobody can exactly pinpoint when it happened. Then, just before the pandemic began, there was a change in Stephanie. Arnold retired from a job working for the gas company. The daughters grew and started families of their own. The family lived for many happy years this way. "She made sure I took the flu shots, we took the shingles shot, we took the pneumonia shot," Arnold recalls. She went for regular checkups, and she was a big believer in vaccines. "She spread hope with people."įor all her star charts and spiritual ideas, Stephanie was practical when it came to her health. "Everybody loved it, because everybody is always trying to figure out their lives. It was quirky, but Laurie says that Stephanie brought a lot of positivity and optimism to her sessions. She did readings to advise people about things like houses, kids and jobs. When the daughters reached high school, Stephanie began to get into astrology and tarot.
"She just believed we could do anything, and I think that's really powerful as a parent," she recalls. Vikki remembers Stephanie had an unwavering belief in her children's ability to achieve whatever they wanted. They had two daughters, Laurie and Vikki, who Stephanie stayed home to raise. After a few years of marriage, they moved to Long Island and bought a fixer-upper home. Arnold had just returned from military service in Vietnam. Local papers across the country are dotted with stories of those who refused vaccination, only to find themselves fighting for their very lives against the disease.Īrnold and Stephanie met in the Bronx in the late 1960s. Anti-vaccine advocates have leveraged the pandemic to sow mistrust and fear about the vaccines.
Not everyone who refuses a vaccine believes in elaborate conspiracy theories, but many likely do. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, more than 230,000 deaths could have been avoided if individuals had gotten vaccinated. "I blame the misinformation."Īs America approaches a million deaths from COVID-19, many thousands of families have been left wondering whether available treatments and vaccines could have saved their loved ones. "I don't believe she was supposed to die," Laurie says. Her belief in those far-out ideas caused her to avoid vaccination and led her to delay and even refuse some of the most effective treatments after she got sick. In the years leading up to her death, Stephanie had become embroiled in conspiracy theories. But Laurie says it wasn't just COVID that killed her mother. Stephanie was 75 when she succumbed to COVID-19 this past December. "I literally go through this all the time." "There is no perfect puzzle piece," says Stephanie's daughter Laurie. Even months after it happened, her family is struggling to figure out why. One thing everyone agrees on is that Stephanie didn't have to die. "I blame the misinformation." Stephanie had been wrapped up in a world of conspiracy theories online, which led her to refuse treatments for COVID. Laurie's mother, Stephanie, 75, died of COVID-19 in December.
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