Coronavirus has ravaged this Maryland family, with their dad and grandparents dying just weeks apart

In the house her father built, Alyssa Chalk held his hand as he took his final breaths. He died in his office, surrounded by his family, gasping for air.

The coronavirus already had devastated the Chalk family before it swept into their Ellicott City home and took John Chalk Sr., whom his daughter described as a loving soul who would’ve given her the world. It also killed her grandmother, Pat Chalk, on April 29, and possibly her grandfather, Francis “Buzz” Chalk, who died April 14.

John Chalk Sr., a self-employed architect, had shown signs of improvement in the days before he died — and had felt well enough for Alyssa, 23, to bring him multiple plates of food as he worked at his desk, where he had quarantined himself after a brief hospital stay.

“He was supposed to be OK,” she said. “On Thursday, he said it was the best he’d felt. He wasn’t dehydrated, he was eating. He was working.”

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