NEW YORK (AP) - The 61-year-old woman who died of inhalation anthrax yesterday fled Vietnam 24 years ago, leaving behind her possessions and relatives and adopting her Bronx neighbors as her extended family.
Kathy Nguyen came to the United States with the aid of a soldier who was a New York City police officer, co-workers and neighbors said.
She settled in the Bronx and found a job as a hospital stockroom clerk.
She held similar jobs throughout the past two decades, spending the past 10 years at the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital. She was working there when she was diagnosed with the city’s first case of inhalation anthrax. She died yesterday at Lenox Hill Hospital.
Friends and neighbors said Nguyen always had a ready smile and time for a friendly exchange. She also would show appreciation for the little jobs they did for her with small gifts.
"She had a very sweet, low voice. She was a happy person. All the time, she greeted you, she had a smile," a neighbor, Yvette Lebron, said.
Nguyen lived alone, but neighbors said she had a lot of friends. Her only son died in a car crash years ago, neighbors said, and her ex-husband, an American, is believed to live in Germany.
Eduardo Rivera, 19, an upstairs neighbor, remembered Nguyen as a friendly woman who always stopped to ask him about his life.
"I saw her in the elevator most of the time," Rivera said. "She would ask me if I’m still in school, if I’m working.
"She’d come around for holidays and Christmas, and she might bring a little something upstairs for us."
Nguyen loved to shop and cook and was known for making Thanksgiving dinner for neighbors - homemade baked salmon, won-ton soup and crispy duck.
Recently Nguyen started talking about moving in with a co-worker, Lebron said, "because it was hard for her to save money and she never took a vacation. She struggled. She made sure she was on top of her bills."
Lebron, who often sat on a bench outside the building, frequently greeted Nguyen on her way to and from work. A petite woman, Nguyen dressed neatly, with an Asian flair to her outfits.
"She wasn’t a person who would go out. She was a home person," Lebron said.
Late last week, Nguyen complained to her neighbors about respiratory trouble that she thought was just a cold.
Hattie O’Neil, who works in admitting at the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, said Nguyen was "always very pleasant and always jovial, but I saw her on Friday, she wasn’t herself. She was pale and all bundled up."
Thomas Rich, who also works in admitting, said Nguyen accepted equipment that came into the hospital and made sure it got to the right office. "Almost everyone in the hospital came in contact with her," he said.
Her neighbors said she worked afternoons and nights, going to work by subway and coming home close to midnight.
"We don’t know how Kathy got this," said Anna Rodriquez, manager of Nguyen’s building.
"It’s not like Kathy traveled a lot or visited a lot of people. She was a person who concentrated on work and home, work and home," she said.
Edith Navedo, a former neighbor, told The New York Times that Nguyen had told people she came from a well-to-do family in Vietnam, that her mother was a teacher and her uncle rented rooms to U.S. soldiers during the war. She spoke of a beautiful house by the water in Vietnam.
Not long after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in Washington and New York, Lebron and some friends were outside discussing their fears. Nguyen happened along and joined in. "She said the best thing that everyone could hold onto is to go to church and pray," Lebron said.
11/02/01 1:39 AM
Anthrax victim known as kind woman
NEW YORK (AP) - She lived so quietly that few neighbors ever saw her apartment. But the mysterious anthrax death of a Vietnamese immigrant has revealed a legacy of simple kindness that touched many in her adopted homeland.
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| An FBI Hazardous Materials Response Team member gets supplies, Thursday, from a truck parked outside of the apartment building where hospital worker Kathy Nguyen lived, in the Bronx borough of New York. Federal and city authorities examined Nguyen's apartment Thursday, for clues to how she was exposed to the anthrax that killed her Wednesday. (AP Photo/Suzanne Plunkett) |
Nguyen, a 61-year-old hospital worker, died Wednesday, just three days after checking herself into a hospital. With no relatives yet claiming her body, her neighbors, employer and landlord want to make sure she is properly mourned and buried.
Even the local elementary school, where she had no children, may conduct a memorial for her.
``We feel we'd like to contribute to the whole celebration of her life,'' Public School 66 Principal Marcia Gonzalez said. Many children lived in Nguyen's building and ``need that sense of closure.''
The hospital where Nguyen worked as a stockroom clerk will hold a memorial service as well. ``She touched many people's lives here,'' said Barbara Wrede, spokeswoman for the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital.
Scott Jaffee, owner of Metropolitan Realty Group, which manages Nguyen's apartment complex, said he would help with funeral expenses if needed.
The network of acquaintances and neighbors in her apartment building are determined to make sure that Nguyen, whom they knew as a devout Roman Catholic and a cheerful if private friend, is buried with appropriate recognition.
``We do plan to do something to bury her,'' said Yvette Lebron. ``She won't be left in the morgue.''
On Thursday, police and federal investigators traipsed through the courtyard where friends erected a small shrine with carnations, candles and a Virgin Mary statue beneath Nguyen's third-floor window. Investigators, still trying to learn how Nguyen contracted the deadly anthrax, were retracing her steps.
Nguyen's friends painted a portrait of a low-key woman whose integration into the fabric of New York was the very essence of the hardworking immigrant story.
But hers also is the story of a caring life - her thoughtful gifts to an upstairs family at Christmas, her home-cooked delicacies and the invariable call to her landlord to convey holiday wishes.
``She'd come to my house. She'd bring something to eat. She cooked soup for me,'' said downstairs neighbor Josefa Richardson. Though Richardson's English is limited and Nguyen spoke no Spanish they became friends when both lived on East 86th Street in the late 1970s.
One Christmas, Nguyen showed up with a brand new electric heater for another neighbor whose apartment was cold, Aida Torres. ``She was a beautiful loving caring person,'' Torres said Thursday.
Divorced, Nguyen had a son whom friends said died several years ago in an auto accident. She never talked much about him, or her ex-husband. Richardson said she met a boyfriend years back, and there was a cousin who came to visit once. Richardson said Nguyen rarely spoke of her past, but said she had worked at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon.
Immigration and Naturalization Service records show she entered the United States in San Diego on May 4, 1975.
Richardson last saw her friend Oct. 25 en route to work.
``She told me, 'I'm tired, Josefa,''' said Richardson, who urged her to call in sick. Nguyen wanted to tough it out. ``I'll call you on Saturday,'' Richardson said.
On Saturday there was no answer. Nguyen was so sick by Sunday that her building super rushed her to the hospital.
Friday, November 2, 2001