A 98-year-old woman who went viral for her wholesome pandemic baking videos died from COVID-19

• A 98-year-old woman who went viral for making baking videos on Facebook during the pandemic died in the hospital after she was diagnosed with COVID-19 and a lung infection, her daughter said in a video posted to Facebook.
• Lucy Pollock of Latrobe, Pennsylvania, began posting videos on Facebook with her family early on in the pandemic but was hospitalized on Friday, Trib Live noted.
• She had improved Saturday, but Pollock died unexpectedly early Sunday, her daughter, Mary Ellen Raneri, explained.
• Pollock's videos amassed 40,000 followers on Facebook, and her daughter said she planned to go ahead with the cookbook the two created together.

Lucy Pollock, a 98-year-old woman who became known for sharing baking recipes and videos on Facebook during the COVID-19 pandemic died after she was hospitalized with the disease, her daughter, Mary Ellen Raneri said in a video posted to her mother's Facebook page.

Raneri said in the nearly ten-minute video that her mother had been diagnosed with COVID-19 and a lung infection prior to her death. She was hospitalized on Friday, had appeared better on Saturday before she died Sunday, she said.

"The beautiful, lovely Lucy, talented woman and amazing mother, passed away last night at 3 in the morning," she said. "It was very unexpected. It was due to a lung infection and also, she tested positive for COVID, so it's quite an eye-opener for us and for everybody, and it's kind of ironic that what she struggled so hard to help people with eventually ended up hurting her."

According to Pollock's Facebook page, "Baking With Lucy," Pollock made "how-to" videos "of recipes that cover almost a century of collection — some treasured family keepsakes — passed down through generations, some donated by friends and others from frayed, newspaper clippings and tattered hand-written notes."

Raneri said in the video she was able to visit her mom in the hospital and was able to sing "You Are My Sunshine" before her death.

"She closed her eyes, she looked really happy, and she was at peace," she said in the video.

Pollock, with the help of her family, used Facebook's live streaming feature to share recipes from pumpkin rolls to raisin-filled cookies, to basic white bread. More than 40,000 people follow Pollock's page on Facebook.

Pollock had even shared recipes on NBC's "Today" show on Wednesday in a pre-recorded video that aired days before her death, TODAY.com reported.

In the video announcing her mother's death, Raneri said that her mother's Facebook fans gave her mom a "second chance to feel useful."

"I appreciate you guys listening to me," she said. "I feel like I'm with my family right now and I can tell you how I feel, and you can understand that she 's a wonderful, remarkable person and she went out with a blast."

Raneri said she plans to go forward with plans to publish her mother's cookbook and said she would still use the Facebook page to share her recipes, as Trib Live noted.

"I don't think I knew how much I loved my mom until we started to do this project together," Raneri said of working with Pollock on the forthcoming cookbook. "I loved her, but I don't think I knew how much I admired her. She was an amazing person."