After five grueling months, Thomas Brown, 61, has finally gone back to work. His job as a housekeeper with Drury’s Pear Tree Inn St. Louis Near Union Station, temporarily ended as the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered thousands of businesses.
According to a study released by the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA), nearly nine in 10 hotels nationwide had been forced to lay off or furlough employees due to the deadly disease.
For Brown, the loss was devastating. Getting hired at the Pear Tree in 2019 was a life raft. It signaled the end of a two-year bout with unemployment, a chance to get caught up on mounting child support payments and the ability to keep a roof over his head. Just as things were looking up, the mysterious, vast-spreading disease reversed Brown’s fortunes.
In a way, this has been the trajectory of Brown’s up-then-down life.
The word “special” was attached to him throughout his young life and it wasn’t a compliment. Family can be cruel, and Brown’s 10 siblings took harsh delight in poking fun at his crossed eyes and thick glasses. He admits that he had trouble reading and writing in elementary school and was crushed when his mother agreed that he should be sent to Martin Luther King Jr. High School for disabled children in the city.
“I was angry that momma put me in that school. I wasn’t disabled,” Brown recalled bitterly. “I couldn’t understand why I was there with those people?”
Brown now admits that attending the school was a “privilege.”
“I watched handicapped people trying to learn and trying to succeed with what they had. I wasn’t blind, deaf or in a wheelchair. They helped me realize that I shouldn’t be ashamed of my shortcomings, that I was really blessed and could do anything.”
His father was a chronic alcoholic, but Brown said his mother, Evalena, was his hero.
“We were poor, but momma made sure her 11 kids were always happy and taken care of. We were always laughing, joking, singing, and dancing around the house.”
Brown was raised in the Jehovah’s Witness religion. At a young age he was knocking on the doors of strangers, spreading the gospel. This, he said, gave him an advantage.
“I was raised to talk to people and make them happy, hopeful. The religion helped me relate to different people; to not be bothered by racism; to be the best me I could be.”
Brown said college was never an option. Getting a job, any job after he graduated from high school was his only obsession. He worked at restaurants and temporary gigs until 1987 when he landed a job in food prep at Children’s Hospital. Things worked well there for almost 10 years, Brown said, until he filed a disability claim for an on-the-job injury. After that, his relationship with his bosses soured and he was “let go” in 2008.
Corrective glasses fixed his eye problem. MLK High school helped boost his self-esteem. Brown said he developed a strong work ethic and an infectious sense of humor. He said he’s that employee who keeps his co-workers in stitches with jokes and impromptu impressions of celebrities like William Shatner or Elvis Presley.
Before he lost the hospital job, however, he caught the eye of Mr. Eugene Henry, an entrepreneur with his own cleaning company. Henry, who was visiting his grandson at the hospital, took Brown under his wing. He worked after hours with Henry cleaning offices and eventually went on to become a fulltime employee.
“Mr. Henry treated me like a son,” Brown recollected. “He taught me the art of cleaning, which gave me a sense of responsibility and pride. He kept saying I could have my own cleaning business someday.”
Brown got married in 1990. He and his wife, Tonya, had two children. After the birth of their daughter, Tonya’s started having heart problems. Her speech was slurring, she started losing her sight and balance and was eventually wheelchair bound. Tonya was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and died from related complications in 2006.
The next 13 years were a series of major setbacks for Brown. Opportunities with Mr. Henry dried up. He and his two kids bounced from place-to-place for two years as he struggled to find steady work. Eventually, he was forced to let the children stay with his wife’s family who petitioned the courts for custody and won. Without money for legal representation, Brown feels he is the victim of a biased judicial system. He’s sought help from social advocacy agencies but has yet to receive custody or visitation rights. The majority of his paychecks and unemployment benefits, he added, is being garnished by the courts.
Brown has been relying on his entrepreneurial skills to get by. With his rusty but dependable 1990 Chevy pickup, a buffer, carpet cleaner and a lawn mower he’s managed to survive while furloughed from the hotel. Just when he felt he was on the road to recovery and perhaps even getting custody of his kids (Brown also has two children from another relationship), the coronavirus reinforced the fragility of his life.
In February, he returned to the Pear Tree with a new cleaning regime. Drury, a Missouri company with more than 150 properties has partnered with Ecolab Inc. – a global leader in hygiene and infection prevention solutions for the hospitality industry. The new protocol requires Brown to follow a detailed checklist to ensure that all frequently touched areas—including handles, luggage carts, elevator buttons and more—are disinfected frequently throughout the day.
Brown is just happy to see guests returning to the hotel. Unlike cleaning empty office spaces in the late-night hours, he says nothing makes him happier than satisfying guests and having them compliment his work or service.
“My hours aren’t what they used to be but, hopefully that’ll change as this virus gets under control,” Brown explained. “But I’m back at work, back to cleaning, back to the real Tommy. For me, that means I have a fighting chance.”
Sylvester Brown Jr. is The St. Louis American’s inaugural Deaconess Fellow.
