TOWN OF NEWBURGH — Lorraine Kerr selected few possessions to take with her on Wednesday morning.
She gathered two triangular cases that held United States flags, and she carried them to a retaining wall along her driveway. She piled an old FDNY sweatshirt between them and placed a blue fireman's parade hat on top of it.
She brought out three bags, a stuffed panda and an old Christmas stocking stuffed with a Disney Sparkling Princess doll. She leaned a dated portrait of four children against one of the bags and sat down on the retaining wall.
A neighbor saw her there at about 8:30 a.m. He heard the wail of firetruck sirens 30 minutes later. Smoke clouded the upper windows of Kerr's split-level house and hung under the eaves. The house at 8 Marian Drive was burning from a back bedroom.
When Kerr's husband was alive, he had crawled all over the house. He painted the walls and worked on the lawn. But that was a long time ago.
Read all of Doyle Murphys’ story, After firefighter husband died, widow's life unraveled, neighbor says, at the Times-Herald Record.
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Very sad indeed. Also a stark example of the highly specific compassion people have. If her husband hadn't died in that fire, he may well have been one of those killed a year later on Sept. 11, and Kerr would have been a $5 million widow.
Posted by: velvet goldmine | Friday, August 05, 2011 at 12:59 PM
Thank god no one was hurt.
Posted by: actor212 | Friday, August 05, 2011 at 02:05 PM