Reflection

My name is Terra Szuhay and I am the niece of Drausin Wulsin. 

In having to restructure our college lives and concepts of college learning and courses because of the COVID-19 pandemic, I am grateful that, despite the loss of our Latinx Oral History Project in Lorain, OH, we were given the opportunity to focus the rest of the semester on exploring, documenting, and engaging with how Coronavirus is affecting individuals and communities in locations across the country and in different parts of the world. As each of us is deeply immersed and emotionally-involved in our own experiences of living in the Coronavirus pandemic, which from my experience can feel very isolating at times, this project has encouraged us to listen to, and to document other people’s stories of how they are living with, being affected by, and thinking about the pandemic. 

In mid March, as we began to envision the breadth of our Bridging the Distance project, I decided that I would love to conduct an oral history of my uncle, Drausin Wulsin, if he was interested. As a farmer in southern Ohio, who relies heavily on Farmer’s Markets to reach buyers, I knew that, like many, many businesses across the United States and throughout the world, their practices and routines were dramatically altered due to the pandemic and the necessary stay-at-home and social distancing orders instituted by local and national governments. 

One huge challenge for every individual during these times of living and operating through social distance rules is to remain connected with others and to reaffirm and continue to strengthen relationships. This is also the case for businesses, and throughout our conversation, I was struck by the heart, soul, and love that Uncle Drausin and his team continue to put into maintaining connections with their customers, whether through the weekly blog post, or through socially-distant, drive-through product deliveries. As Uncle Drausin reflected during the interview, “this whole thing is very intense professionally for us because I feel like we're not just delivering food to people, we're delivering medicine to people who live on an island, and it's all so critical, it's all so important. So I feel that impact. And I'm grateful to be able to respond” (00:12:00).