“If she hadn’t been in the car, she would be alive today” — COVID-19 claims 30-year-old Native American

COVID victim Maryan Petoskey (middle) in a lighter moment. Photo by her half sister, Simone Petoskey.

By Jacob Wheeler

Sun editor

In the final days before she died of the Coronavirus on November 23, Maryan Rochel Petoskey’s family received fewer and fewer updates from the COVID-19 ward at Munson Medical Center in Traverse City.

They understood that meant the hospital was becoming overwhelmed with patients. Calls from Munson grew less frequent as Maryan’s time on a ventilator stretched from days to a week (she arrived at the hospital on the evening of Thursday, November 12, three days before she was put on a ventilator). 

Her aunt, Eva, became the liaison with Munson, and she would text updates to the larger family. Some messages were misinterpreted as hopeful news. Maryan was taken off the vent on Saturday morning, November 21. She wasn’t able to talk, but messaged friends and family on Facebook.

Her half sister Simone received a call that Sunday evening that she had flatlined and was being put back on the vent. Maryan lost her heartbeat and died at 4:58 on the Monday morning before Thanksgiving.

According to her obituary, Maryan was dubbed “Sissy But” by those who cherished her as a free-spirited “ball of energy”. She loved dirt bikes, ATVs, anything fast and full of adrenaline — all the while listening to her heavy metal music. She loved to travel and was never scared to make new friends.

A member of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians who lived on the Peshawbestown reservation, Maryan Rochel Petoskey was 30 years young. She was the third victim of COVID-19 in Leelanau County, and the first person under age 60 to die of the pandemic. According to the Benzie-Leelanau Health Department, she had “no significant comorbidities”. No cancer, no diabetes, nothing to reinforce the dangerously false notion that the Coronavirus claims only the old and the sick.

[Another tribal member, 76-year-old Phyllis Wanageshik died of COVID-19 on Saturday, December 5. To some, she was considered “the Queen of Peshawbestown.” Zhaabadiis Biidaasige wrote on Facebook, “They say that when an elder passes it is as if a library of wisdom has collapsed.” The following day, church bells in the community rang 76 times in her honor.]

“COVID does not follow party lines, it does not care about race, sex, age or who you are,” Simone told me on a phone call six days after Maryan died. “It will attack whoever it can.”

“I feel people aren’t being safe enough. People are so worried about their freedoms. I don’t think that wearing a mask infringes upon your freedom. If anything, it preserves your freedom because you can live through this pandemic.”

“Maryan was young and healthy,” added Simone, though she conceded that her half-sister had a tough life, and drank too much alcohol as a result. Their father, Robert Petoskey, died when she was 14. When Maryan was 20, she had a daughter named Louisianna Mae King, who died after 13 days. “She was a beautiful Anishinaabek baby with round cheeks, a head full of thick, black hair, and sparkling black eyes,” read the girl’s obituary. Louisianna would have been 10 years old today.

“It was heartbreaking for her—something that lived with her forever,” said Simone. “She was learning to live with that loss, but it was hard on her.”

Maryan’s family believes she was exposed to COVID-19 on October 27, when an individual stopped by her house in Peshawbestown and took her for a drive to visit the site where they had lost a family member earlier this year to an accident. He tested positive after they were in the car together, and Maryan received a call from the Health Department on October 30, the day before Halloween, informing her of the exposure. She received a rapid, same-day COVID test at the Grand Traverse Band’s Medicine Lodge.

Simone remembers that Maryan “was a little upset” when she learned that she had tested positive. “But she wasn’t super sick.” Maryan was more worried about protecting her nieces who lived in the same household. They sectioned off the house so she wouldn’t come into contact with them.

“She told me she was stupid for hanging out with him,” said Simone. “She regretted not being safer.”

Six days after receiving her positive test, Maryan suffered from more and more symptoms. She was throwing up, felt achy, had a bad headache, and was retaining so much fluid in her stomach that her sister Donna said she looked like she was 9 months pregnant. Still, Maryan had no trouble breathing. On that Thursday night, they made and ate their dinner, then called 911 because no one at the home had a car and they didn’t want to ask someone in Peshawbestown to drive a COVID-positive person to the hospital. When the ambulance arrived, Maryan walked to it, herself.

“I talked to her the day after she arrived in the hospital,” said Simone. “She didn’t have labored breathing at that time. We honestly thought she would get the fluid drained, and be on her way. But she got worse and worse.

By Saturday, Maryan had trouble breathing. On Sunday, Munson staff told her she would be put on a ventilator.

Simone and three of her children called Maryan to tell her “we loved her, we’d see her soon, and to be strong and get over this.”

Maryan was particularly close with her 18-year-old nephew Frankie, who was born when she was 12. “They did their growing up together,” said Simone.

Maryan told Frankie, “I’ll see ya later. Don’t forget me!”

“She was scared she wasn’t going to come out of this,” said Simone. “She was scared to talk to them. But if she wasn’t going to make it, she wanted to say goodbye to them.”

Maryan was buried and received a graveside Catholic service attended by immediate family only on November 25—the day before Thanksgiving—in the St. Kateri Tekakwitha Cemetery. She rests next to her father Robert.

The family hopes to have a traditional Native American service next August 11, which would be Maryan’s 31st birthday, with a bonfire, tribal members paying their respects, saying prayers and offering tobacco to the fire—if a vaccine is ready by then.

“When a native person dies, our community rallies together,” said Simone. “There’s a whole process you go through. Everyone is usually together. In our dad’s case, he had 19 brothers and sisters, and I can’t tell you how many cousins.”

“Hopefully it’s safe to gather then and hold a celebration of life. Maryan touched so many people, everybody really wanted to be part of it. … We want to remember our sister in a positive light.”