Holly Wheaton does not own a single little black dress or power suit. Those days are long behind her.
More than two decades ago, the Springs native traded in her sleek Chicago wardrobe for flannel shirts, blue jeans and work boots when she moved back home to join the ranks of the Springs Food Pantry that her mother, Betty Reichart, had started in 1992 — a time when feeding over 200 families was unimaginable.
But that is precisely what Ms. Wheaton faces today.
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Dressed in a medical gown, mask and face shield, Stratis Morfogen had poked his head into his 14-year-old daughter’s bedroom to check on her — when he saw tears streaming down her face.
By way of explanation, she simply handed him her phone.
“F you, Bea! I have to quarantine because of you,” one TikTok user wrote. “Bea this is your fault!” another said on Instagram.
And then came the comment section — brutal, relentless finger-pointing at the Southampton eighth-grader who had tested positive for COVID-19 less than two days earlier and complied with contact tracing.
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For nearly two decades, St. John’s Episcopal Church in Southampton had never once locked its doors, keeping them open for rest, prayer, solace and peace 24 hours a day, seven days a week — with no exceptions.
It was a tradition born from the devastation of September 11, 2001, a time when religious, spiritual and agnostic individuals alike needed guidance, or simply a place to go, following the terrorist attack on New York City that day, just 90 miles away.
Weighed down by uncertainty and fear, parishioners sought a similar degree of comfort when the COVID-19 outbreak reached the East End this past March. Some turned to their houses of worship as beacons of hope — and, in the case of St. John’s, knew the doors would always be open.
Until they weren’t.
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Six days out, one day in.
For Lori Hawkins, the words became a mantra. They were her schedule, a repetitive routine. A source of comfort and reassurance, stress and depression. An escape, a homecoming, her sense of normalcy.
For the last six months, that one sentence defined her life. And it has led to the most fulfilling photography series of her 20-year career.
“I feel like I’m creating my best work ever,” Hawkins said from her home in Bridgehampton. “I feel like I’m more focused on telling stories.”
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For the first eight years of his life, Jeremy Dennis knew his grandmother Loretta Silva — Princess Silva Arrow of the Shinnecock Nation — only as “Ma.”
And, even from a young age, he realized that she carried the lifeblood of the family.
Ma welcomed generation after generation into her home on the Shinnecock Territory, ensuring every child in her family grew up surrounded by love and warmth, discipline and support, including Mr. Dennis. Before he was born, she would throw mini-powwows on the front lawn, drawing crowds from all over — even from abroad — to visit the house and see native crafts and beadwork, eat traditional corn cooked in the earth layered under seaweed, and watch tribe members dance and sing, dressed in their finest regalia.
It was a place for family and tradition. And when Ma died in 1998, a part of that was lost, pushed aside, as was the upkeep of the house.
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