Hankou

Marcia Aldrich Thompson was born on Oct. 2, 1923, in the Central Chinese city of Hankou (now part of Wuhan) where her father, Newell, was an executive with the Standard Oil Company of New York.

Authorities in Wuhan, the epicenter of China's outbreak and location of the majority of its deaths, quickly identified the funeral business as a potential source of transmission. The local civil affairs bureau in late January ordered all funerals for confirmed COVID-19 victims to be handled at a single funeral home in the city's Hankou district.