Ozark town grieves for fire victims

Alta Lemons, a slender 74-year-old everyone called “Grandma,” was never seen without a cup of coffee in her hand and her dog curled up at her feet. She came to the Anderson Guest House because she had Alzheimer’s.

Donald Schorzman, 57, who helped find homes for stray kittens in the neighborhood, moved in several years ago for treatment of schizophrenia.

And recently married Glen Taff, 19, was working the night caretaker shift at the residential facility to save money to buy a home for his wife.

They were among the 10 people who died before dawn Monday in a fire that has shocked this economically depressed town.

“I don’t understand how this could have happened,” said Barney Boyd, who frequently repaired the center’s heating and air-conditioning system. “This was supposed to be a safe place for people who needed special care.”

Investigators said Tuesday that they do not expect to determine that arson caused the blaze, which broke out about 1 a.m. in the one-story, cinder-block residence for the elderly and mentally disabled.

When members of the Anderson Volunteer Fire Department arrived, they found several residents wandering around the front lawn in robes and pajamas. Some were bleeding from cuts to their hands and arms from windows they broke to escape.

Rescuers were able to carry out as many as 15 residents, whose ages ranged from teens to their 70s.

Twenty-five people were injured in the fire, Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. Kent Casey said Tuesday. At least 19 were treated at hospitals, mostly for smoke inhalation.

Taff’s wife, Amanda, was also working at the home as a caretaker. Family members said she is being treated for serious burns at a hospital in Springfield.

“They’d only been married for about a year,” James Matthew, Amanda’s uncle, told reporters. “It’s been horrible.”

State and federal investigators continued to sift through the rubble Tuesday and questioned staff at Joplin River of Life Ministries Inc., the nonprofit group that managed the facility.

One of Joplin’s founders, Robert J. Dupont, pleaded guilty in 2003 to taking part in a scheme to dupe Medicare by directing patients living in group homes he owned -- including the one that burned down -- to specific doctors. The doctors would then sign paperwork saying that the patients needed care provided by companies either owned by or connected to Dupont, according to federal records.

Matt J. Whitworth, first assistant U.S. attorney in Kansas City, Mo., said that Dupont was sentenced to 21 months in federal prison and released in September 2004. He is serving a three-year supervised release and making payments on $120,000 in restitution.

A spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services said the agency is investigating what role Dupont played in operating the Anderson Guest House.

“Anyone convicted of a felony related to the operation of a long-term care facility may not be involved in the actual operation of it,” Nanci Gonder said. “We don’t know whether he just owned the land and building, which is legal, or if he was active in the operations. So we’re going to find out.”

Dupont could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Many of the fire victims were born in this town of about 1,900 in the Ozark hills of southwest Missouri or had lived here several years.

Among them was Patricia Henson, 54, who enjoyed collecting dolls and working on needlepoint projects for friends.

The fire also killed Brian Rudnick, 33, who, like many of the residents, was a chain-smoker.

“They were always smoking. At the house. At the local restaurants. Out of the street,” said Gloria Irby, who owned the now-closed Iron Wheel Cafe next to the Anderson Guest House.

“When I heard it was fire, all I could think was one of them fell asleep while smoking in bed,” Irby said.

The town’s two funeral homes have been working past dark since the fire, meeting with families and religious leaders to figure out when to schedule all the funerals.

Every time the phone rings at Bethie’s Flower Shop, Beth Buckingham flinches. She knows the call will be an order for a modest funeral bouquet or wreath, another plea for something pretty for a loved one who died.

She is scrambling to get more evergreen wreaths and poinsettias from Arkansas and Kansas. And she wants to be sure she’ll have enough to send one bouquet herself -- to Taff’s family.

“He was one of my students when I was a junior high school teacher,” a tearful Buckingham said as she arranged vines of ivy in a rustic reed basket. “He was just a kid.”

In Anderson, a town where one in five families lives below the poverty line and most people work in the poultry plants or at one of the nearby Wal-Marts, residents have started pooling their spare change to help pay for the funerals.

“Some of these folks ... had no money,” said Carol Corcoran, co-owner of the local Dairy Queen and wife of the mayor. “We may only get a few hundred dollars, if we’re lucky. But everyone deserves a casket. Everyone deserves a little dignity when they go on to God.”

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p.j.huffstutter@latimes.com