Woman, 105, who survived 1918 flu and World War II dies of Covid

Primetta Giacopini outlasted WWII and the Great Influenza pandemic of 1918, but died of Covid at 105 years of age (Picture: AP Photo/Josh Edelson )

Primetta Giacopini was born in the midst of a global pandemic, and more than a century later, she has left the world in a similar circumstance.

She outlasted the Great Influenza pandemic of 1918 and World War II. Primetta, a woman full of attitude who rarely gave up, died after a battle with the coronavirus. She was 105.

‘I think my mother would have been around quite a bit longer if she hadn’t contracted Covid,’ her daughter Dorene, 61, said.

When Primetta was just two years old her own mother, Pasquina Fei, died of the flu at age 25. That pandemic killed about 675,000 Americans, a total the coronavirus pandemic has already surpassed.

Dorene Giacopini holds a photo of her with her mother, Primetta Giacopini, who died from Covid at 105. Primetta was an advocate before her time for her daughter Dorene, who was born with spina bifida (Picture: AP)

‘We always talk about… my grandmother and mother, the only thing that could kill them was a worldwide pandemic,’ Dorene said.

She lived an adventurous life between two continents, where she fell in love with a World War II fighter pilot and barely escaped Europe as fascism rose under Benito Mussolini. She left Italy for the US and landed at General Motors, grinding steel to cover ball bearings for the war effort, her daughter said.

Primetta believed all Americans who weren’t alive for World War II were spoiled brats.

She married twice, first with an Italian fighter pilot named Vittorio Andriani, and again to Dorene’s father, Umbert ‘Bert’ Diacopini, whom she met while working at General Motors.

A note from President Joe Biden is seen placed among photos of Primetta Giacopini, who died of Covid at 105 (Picture: AP)

They remained married until Bert died in 2002.

In 1960, Primetta gave birth to Dorene, who was born with spina bifida, a birth defect in which the spinal cord doesn’t fully develop. For the first 50 years of her life Dorene needed crutches to walk.

Despite there being a different attitude toward people with disabilities at the time, Primetta never stopped advocating on her behalf, Dorene said.

‘My folks were born a long time ago,’ she said. ‘Their attitude about disability, and my mother’s attitude about disability, was it lucky I was smart and I should get a good job I really liked because I probably wouldn’t be getting married or have children. They did not take parenting classes.’

Dorene Giacopini displays a photo of her mother, left, and her, right, dressed as Rosie the Riveter from her home in Richmond, California (Picture: AP)

Primetta once convinced their school officials to move accelerated classes from the third floor to the first so Dorene could participate. In springtime she would demand the city sweepers clear their street of salt and sand so Dorene wouldn’t slip.

When she last visited her mother, Dorene noticed she had a cough. Figuring she caught Covid from her caretaker, she made sure to say ‘I love you,’ before leaving.

‘She said “See you later, alligator”. I think we both said “After a while, crocodile,”‘ Dorene said.

That was the last she saw her mother, who was taken to the emergency room. Chest X-rays confirmed Primetta had pneumonia.

When faced with the decision of putting her mother on a ventilator, Dorene was told ‘nobody over 80 makes it off a ventilator’. And so she decided to remove her mother’s oxygen.

Primetta struggled with the virus for a week before she died on September 16.

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