A Florida mother and daughter, both of them teachers at the same nursery school, died within days of each other from coronavirus complications.
Marilyn Foshee, 81, and her daughter, Julie Foshee-Knowell, 44, were both diagnosed with COVID-19 in late November, The Miami Herald reported.
The women, longtime employees of Trinity Christian Academy in Jacksonville, were believed to have contracted the virus during the Thanksgiving break.
They never made it back to school. Foshee-Knowell died over the weekend. Her mother died a few days earlier, on Dec. 15.
Mom Marylin, known to students as “Mimi,” was a longtime preschool teacher, who had been involved with the school since 1994, according to News4Jax.
Her daughter, the preschool director, started as an assistant at the school when she was a teenager and rose through the ranks, the outlet reported.
Trinity spokesman Pastor Tom Messer told The Florida Times-Union that the beloved educators “lived in a way that they gave their life up for everybody else.”
“I think this is a time that you come together and you recommit yourself to the mission of what Julie and Marilyn were all about, and that is being selfless and in the sense that you give yourself away to other people,” Messer said.
A GoFundMe page was initially set up by family friend Angie Dennard to help cover Foshee’s funeral costs. Now, the money will go to pay for services for both women.
“Julie and her mom will be missed by all,” Dennard wrote on the page. “Let’s continue to lift her family up in prayers.”