Cleo Shepherd, left, on graduation day at Ontario High School with her mother, Summer Carr.

Cleo Claire Rae Shepherd dreamed about learning to care for children whose lives are threatened by cancer, but her own life didn’t last long enough for her to get the chance.

Cleo, 20, of Huntington, died Sept. 20 at Saint Alphonsus Medical Center in Boise, nine days after she tested positive for COVID-19.

“The last words she said to me were ‘mama, I don’t want to die,’ ” Cleo’s mother, Summer Carr, said in a phone interview on Friday, Sept. 24. “I told her, ‘you’re not going to die.’ ”

As her symptoms worsened, Cleo was put in a medically induced coma. Summer was able to speak to her daughter through a video connection, but Cleo didn’t speak again.

Summer said she spent most of the final day with her daughter, arriving at the hospital at around 10 a.m. on Sept. 20.

Cleo died that day at 6:03 p.m. MDT.

“I got to kiss and hug her,” Summer said. “While I was hugging her, her heart just stopped.”

Cleo, who was in the process of moving to Payette, Idaho, was the 24th Baker County resident to die after contracting COVID-19, and by far the youngest.

Of the other 23 residents, the youngest are two men, both age 59. One died in February 2021, the other in July 2021.

“I’m so sorry for her family and friends’ loss,” Baker County Commissioner Mark Bennett said in a press release announcing Cleo’s death. “Please keep her family and friends in our thoughts and prayers.”

Cleo’s death was the fourth reported this week among Baker County residents, and the fifth during September. That’s the most in any week during the pandemic.

Statewide during the pandemic, 27 people age 29 or younger have died after testing positive, according to OHA. That’s 0.7% of the 3,661 deaths through Thursday, Sept. 25. Almost 71% of those who have died were 70 or older.

September has set a record for the most cases in Baker County, with 379 through Sept. 23. The previous record was 300 cases during August 2021.

‘She loved children’

Cleo, who was born in Kansas City, Kansas, lived for about a decade in Ontario, graduating from Ontario High School, before moving to Huntington, where her grandmother lives, about two years ago, Summer said.

Cleo was like a second mother to her three younger brothers and two younger sisters, Summer said.

Cleo contracted COVID-19 at the Payette, Idaho, day care center where she was the head teacher for toddlers, Summer said.

“She was a natural born mother,” Summer said.

It was an experience with another child — Alanna, the daughter of one of Summer’s friends — that “changed the course of what she wanted to do with her life,” Summer said.

Alanna had cancer at age 4, and she died at age 6.

That prompted Cleo to pursue a career as a pediatric oncology nurse, Summer said.

Cleo, who struggled with obesity for much of her life, was planning to have gastric bypass surgery, and then to enroll in nursing school, Summer said.

“She had dreams,” Summer said of her daughter. “We just never got that far.”

Summer said Cleo “suffered a great deal” as a child due to her weight, dealing with bullying in middle school and high school.

“She didn’t have the typical teenage existence,” Summer said.

Cleo’s favorite diversion was listening to — and singing along with — the pop singer Pink.

“She had the voice of an angel,” Summer said of her daughter. “She always wanted to be famous, to be a singer. I regret that she never got to meet Pink, or to see her in concert.”

But after a difficult childhood, during which she was also the victim of sexual abuse, Cleo had begun to “blossom” in the several months before her death, Summer said.

“She had just started to come out of her teenage shell,” Summer said. “The last six months of her life were probably the best six months she had.”

Summer said she was concerned when she learned that her daughter had tested positive for COVID-19 because she knows that people who are obese have a greater chance of having a severe illness.

Summer said Cleo was not vaccinated “due to personal and closely held religious convictions.”

After she tested positive, Cleo quarantined in a travel trailer parked at her grandmother’s property in Huntington, Summer said.

After about five or six days, during which Cleo complained about how much her chest hurt, she called Summer one day saying she was struggling to breathe.

A Baker City Fire Department ambulance took Cleo to Saint Alphonsus Medical Center in Ontario.

Summer said she was not pleased with the care Cleo received at the hospital during the four or five days she was there.

But the experience was quite different at Saint Alphonsus Medical Center in Boise, Summer said. There, nurses and other staff treated Cleo, braided her hair and treated her “as if she was their own child,” Summer said.

Cleo’s condition, however, continued to worsen.

The disease affected her kidneys, and she had to undergo constant dialysis.

Although Cleo wasn’t able to communicate, Summer said she was able to play Pink’s music through the video chat.

Cleo’s funeral is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 2 at 1 p.m. MDT at the First Christian Church, 906 Second Ave. North in Payette. She will be interred next to her grandfather at Riverside Cemetery in Payette. A viewing is scheduled for Friday, Oct. 1 from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. MDT at Shaffer-Jensen Memory Chapel, 112 N. Ninth St. in Payette.

“She was the most beautiful girl,” Summer said.

Breakthrough cases

The Oregon Health Authority (OHA) on Thursday, Sept. 23 released its weekly report of breakthrough cases — infections in people who are fully vaccinated.

In Baker County, breakthrough cases accounted for 10.8% of cases from Sept. 12-18. Of the 139 county residents who tested positive during that period, 15 were fully vaccinated.

From Sept. 5-11, the county’s breakthrough case rate was 12.5% — 14 of 112 cases.

From Aug. 1 through Sept. 10, the county’s breakthrough case rate was 9.5% — 45 of 474 cases.

Breakthrough cases have been less common in Baker County than in Oregon as a whole.

According to OHA, the rate of breakthrough cases statewide has been 20.2% since Aug. 1. That includes a breakthrough case rate of 23.2% from Sept. 12-18, the highest weekly rate on record.

Cases in schools

The latest OHA weekly report, dated Sept. 22, lists recent cases in Baker County schools, including the date of the most recent case.

• Baker High School: eight students, one staff member, latest onset Sept. 16

• Baker Middle School: seven students, no staff, Sept. 15

• Haines Elementary: five students, one staff, Sept. 14

• South Baker Intermediate: five students, one staff, Sept. 14

• Brooklyn Primary: five students, no staff, Sept. 8

•Baker Early Learning Center: four students, no staff, Sept. 9

• Pine Eagle Charter School, Halfway, nine students, two staff, Sept. 14

The Baker School District announced Friday afternoon, Sept. 24 that there were 17 positive tests within the district during the past week — five at Baker High School, four at Baker Middle School, four at Haines, two at Brooklyn and one each at South Baker and the Baker Early Learning Center.

The district did not say how many cases were students and how many were staff members.